“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 fear 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 ha
d 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,” Tony 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?”
“I think not. What do you want?”
“We want to talk to you about your interest in Leo Balkus,” the first one said.
“Well, in that case, come right in,” Tony said figuring he might get some information from them. They stepped into his foyer and stopped when he turned to them and said, “Here’re the ground rules. You sit on the couch and we talk. You don’t wander around my house snooping into things and planting listening devices or cameras.”
“We don’t do that kind of thing,” the older one said.
“Yeah, right,” Tony answered with mild sarcasm. “Anyway, if I decide I want you to leave, you leave. No arguing, no bullshit, no nothing. Are we clear about that? If not, leave now.” He waited until they both answered him affirmatively then offered them a seat on the couch. Tony then went into his kitchen and refilled his cup with fresh coffee, returned to the living room and took a chair across from the two intruders.
“Coffee smells good,” the younger one said, obviously looking for an offer.
“It is good,” Tony replied as he set the cup down on the coffee table between them. “Show me your fed creds again.”
As the two agents pulled out their badge and credentials cases, Tony picked up a pen and pad of paper he had on the table. He took the older man’s and wrote down his name and other information, then did the same with the younger man’s.
“Why are you bothering one of our agents about Leo Balkus?” the older agent asked.
Tony sipped his coffee and asked, “Why do you want to know?”
“Look, Carvelli,” the younger man said, “we
’re the FBI and we ask the questions.”
“This is my house sonny and I can throw your ass out of here whenever I want to so can the attitude.”
“We still want to know why you’re interested,” the older man said trying to calm things down. “There’s an ongoing investigation and we don’t want you messing it up. You’re an ex-cop, you know these things.”
Tony thought it over for a few moments then said, “Fine, no problem. I’ll steer clear. Anything else?” Tony pleasantly said.
The two agents gave each other a slightly puzzled look and the older man said, “Um, no, I guess not. Ah, thanks for your cooperation.” They then stood up, as did Tony, walked to the door and left. Tony stood at the front window sipping his coffee and watched them walk toward their car. While he watched them leave he thought: That is total bullshit. Investigation my ass. You didn’t show up at my house at seven A.M. to tell me to back off because of an investigation. There’s no investigation going on or my pals in the MPD would know. What the hell’s going on here?
FIFTY-ONE
Bruce Dolan hung up the phone on his desk, swiveled his chair around and sat staring out of one of the windows in his corner office. There was a three acre pond surrounded by large cottonwoods, some of which were close to a hundred years old, behind the building that housed his office.
Normally on a beautiful summer day the pond, the trees and the wildlife, including an occasional deer, would be a lovely site, even for someone as cynical as Dolan. Today, however, his mind somewhere else, he was looking at the scenery but not seeing it. He couldn’t suppress the feelings of unease, anxiety and dread he was dealing with. Ever since Leo had discovered the missing files and DVDs, Dolan couldn’t shake the feeling that events were spinning out of his control. What originally seemed like a good idea, simple even, was now like sand slipping through his fingers.
Leo had an employee, an up and coming mid-level dealer, facing serious prison time. His name was Rolando Young and he was a bright, twenty-four-year-old black man that served as Leo’s drug liaison in the African-American community in Minneapolis. Rolando was the conduit for Leo to supply drugs to street level dealers. He was excellent at his job, was an outstanding source of revenue and had a bright future in Leo’s organization.
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