Rising Phoenix

by Kyle Mills

  “Conference room two please, Joan.” Her face barely cleared the doorjamb as she closed the door behind her.

  Beamon stood and tossed the crumpled paper cup at the trash can, missing by a full three feet. “Game time.”

  Sheets picked up the cup and sank it.

  “Mr. DiPrizzio—I’m Mark Beamon.” The two men shook hands.

  “I recognize you from your photos, Agent Beamon. I’m pleased to meet you. And it’s nice to see you again, Agent Sheets.”

  “Tony.” The use of the mobster’s first name was less familiarity than contempt.

  “I’m not sure you know my attorney, Glenn Montrose.” DiPrizzio motioned to the heavyset man standing next to him. Montrose didn’t offer his hand, but immediately went for a seat. His build seemed to make standing uncomfortable.

  Beamon watched DiPrizzio walk smoothly across the room to take a seat with his back to the wall. Despite his relative youth—he had turned thirty-seven only a week ago—he moved with extreme self-assurance. If he was the least bit uncomfortable being summoned by the FBI for unknown reasons, he didn’t show it.

  “I don’t want to take up any more of your time than necessary, Mr. DiPrizzio. I’ll get right to the point,” Beamon said.

  “I’d appreciate that,” DiPrizzio replied, glancing at an expensive-looking watch for added effect.

  “We have information that would lead us to believe that the CDFS is planning on targeting one of your drug shipments.”

  DiPrizzio’s expression didn’t even flicker. He looked from Beamon to his attorney and then back at Beamon. Finally he spoke. “This is ridiculous. I am a legitimate businessman. Let me repeat that—a legitimate businessman. I am constantly amazed that the FBI continues to harass me and my family simply because we are successful Italian Americans. You have absolutely no evidence that I have ever done anything more heinous than park at a yellow curb.”

  DiPrizzio seemed to be warming up to his victimization speech, and Beamon was on a tight schedule. Beamon motioned to the windows lining one side of the conference room. The rain drove against them, making it look like the building was going through a carwash.

  “It sure is a nice day. How would you like to show me a few sights—you did drive, didn’t you?”

  DiPrizzio looked surprised for a moment, but regained his composure quickly. “Of course.”

  “Great. Joe, why don’t you give Glenn here the ten-dollar tour. Tony’s gonna show me Times Square.”

  Montrose started to protest, beginning the long process of extricating himself from the narrow conference room chair. But his client was already up and heading for the door, with Beamon close behind.

  “Jesus!” Beamon shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of the parking garage. “What the hell are you trying to do, sterilize me?” DiPrizzio’s chauffeur had his testicles in a death grip.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It seems a popular place to put wires.” He had a sadistic smile on his face. Probably always wanted to have an FBI man by the balls.

  “Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” Beamon said, gently rubbing his scrotum.

  “Almost.” The chauffeur reached into the passenger side of the limousine and pulled out a metal detector like the ones used in the airports for people who have baffled the walk-through unit. He ran it carefully over every inch of Beamon’s body. It beeped on his belt buckle and watch.

  DiPrizzio looked surprised. “No sidearm, Agent Beamon?”

  “Ruins the hang of my suit.” He tugged at a frayed lapel.

  DiPrizzio laughed and opened the back door for him. Beamon climbed in.

  “Just drive around, Billy.” The chauffeur grunted and slammed the back door

  “Nice car. Is that a bar?” He pointed.

  “That it is. Can I interest you in a cocktail?”

  “Are you having one?”

  DiPrizzio answered by pouring two Bushmills. The car moved smoothly out of the parking garage and into the crowded New York streets.

  “So you were saying, Agent Beamon?”

  “Mark, please.”

  “Mark.”

  “I was saying that I think that the CDFS is going to hit one of your shipments.”

  DiPrizzio nodded thoughtfully and sipped from his glass. “Well, that is a problem. What do you propose we do about it?”

  Beamon didn’t let show the relief he felt. For a few moments he had been sure that he was going to get nowhere. “We have a date and a general location. I propose that you give us an exact location, and we catch this guy—as they say—red-handed.”

  DiPrizzio laughed out loud. “Your friend Sheets has been after me for almost five years, Mark—and now you want me to just lead you to my product and say, ’Here it is, officer.’” He was dabbing at the corners of his eyes with a linen handkerchief. “I don’t think so.”

  “Look, I hate to say this, but we’re on the same side here. We both want these guys stopped—you want to see demand for your merchandise rebound, and I don’t want anybody else hurt. I can guarantee that we’ll forget everything we see.” Beamon reached across the compartment and grabbed the bottle of Bushmills. He refilled his empty glass and topped off DiPrizzio’s.

  “Now that you’ve warned me, I don’t really need you. Do I?”

  “Come on, Tony. It could be anywhere, anytime. You’d have to quadruple your payroll for the next goddam six months—and it still wouldn’t guarantee that you’d catch this guy.”

  “I have a proposal for you, Mark. I think we can solve both of our problems quickly and painlessly. With a little luck you could be sitting by your pool this time next week.”

  Apparently DiPrizzio had done some homework, too.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I think you’d agree that I have … interrogation techniques that aren’t at your disposal.”

  Beamon nodded. He knew where this was going.

  “You give me the wheres and whens, and I’ll capture this gentleman. The next morning you’ll have a FedEx with everything you ever wanted to know about the CDFS. I believe that solves both of our problems. I keep the FBI out of my business, and you clean up this mess faster than you could have on your own.”

  The car lurched sickeningly, and Beamon turned his eyes to the tinted window next to him. A group of men clad in orange coveralls talked heatedly near an open manhole. The sound didn’t reach him.

  “It’s a tempting offer, Tony. Very tempting. But I’m not sure we’re that desperate yet.”

  DiPrizzio smiled almost imperceptibly. “You’ve got to be getting damn close.”

  “Damn close,” Beamon repeated, eyeing the cellular phone cradled next to his leg.

  “I think I’ve got some bad news,” Robert Swenson said, dropping into a chair. He tossed his damp coat out the door of the office, landing it expertly on the arm of a sofa. Hobart held up his index finger, indicating that he was concentrating, and continued to tap figures into the computer.

  The initial costs of the operation had run over a bit, but he was quickly getting back on target. The contingency fund he had set up for any unpleasant surprises hadn’t been touched in over a month. Hobart had made it perfectly clear that Bill Karns’s relocation was to be at his own expense—and that no more unauthorized operations would be tolerated. Karns made a feeble attempt to defend himself, but in the end had apologized profusely and assured Hobart that he would be a model soldier from here on out.

  Satisfied with the bottom line, Hobart saved the spreadsheet and flipped off the computer. “Beer?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  He fished around in the small refrigerator and produced the last two bottles, making a mental note to bring another six-pack down from his apartment. “So? What’s the news?”

  “Looks like your friends showed up.”

  Hobart chewed on his lip silently and twisted the top off the bottle. Letting Reed Corey escape had been the biggest screwup of the operation—potentially a hell of a lot more damaging than putting Karns on too
long a leash.

  When Hobart returned from Colombia he had instructed his partner to drive by his house a few times a week. Look for loiterers.

  “I saw them for the first time Tuesday and made a mental note. When I drove by today, they’d moved about half a block, but they were still there. Two Hispanic males, between twenty-five and thirty-five, driving a red Nissan Maxima. Well dressed, but they’ve got the look, you know. The car and the clothes fit the neighborhood, but they don’t fit their faces.

  The first rule of surveillance, Hobart reflected. Blend in. No small feat for two young Hispanics in Roland Park—one of Baltimore’s most prestigious neighborhoods.

  “Fuck,” Hobart said simply. He had seen it coming, but there had always been a glimmer of hope that Corey wouldn’t make the connection, or better yet, that he had stepped in front of a speeding bus.

  “Well, we’re gonna have to take care of that.”

  Swenson looked apprehensive. “Hey, I know that most of these cartel enforcers are idiots, but you never know when they’re just gonna be luckier than you. Why don’t we just leave ’em alone? We know they’re there and you never go within ten miles of the house.”

  Hobart shook his head. His partner needed to learn chess. It wasn’t the next move that got you, it was the one after that. “If I thought they’d just sit there with their thumbs up their asses, I would. But they’re not going to.”

  “So what? You’ve altered your appearance and rented this place under an alias. Get a rental car and there’s no way they’ll ever track you down.”

  “Probably true,” Hobart agreed. “But it’s not them I’m worried about. When they figure out that I’m not coming back, and that they can’t find me, they’ll tip off the Bureau. As the de facto leader of the cartels right now, Luis Colombar’s gotta be under a lot of pressure to get this thing wrapped up quickly.”

  Swenson looked as though he still didn’t see his point. “So what good’s killing them gonna do? They’ll just call the FBI that much sooner. And we expose ourselves for nothing.”

  Hobart took a long pull from his beer, wondering how his partner could have spent so many years in drug enforcement and still not understand the mind of his opponent.

  “Trust me on this one, Bob,” he said standing and heading toward the door to the office. He walked around the perimeter of the building in his shirtsleeves, ignoring the damp cold. In his apartment he walked directly to the chess board sitting next to the television and advanced two blue pawns to threaten the king. He stood over the board for a long time, mentally reconfiguring the players, conjuring elaborate attacks and defensive strategies. Finally he tore himself away and walked toward the refrigerator and another cold beer.

  24

  New York City,

  February, 28

  Phil Newberry—at least that’s what he’d been calling himself for the last few months—was running out of tricks. He had watered down drinks, poured them on the floor, “forgotten” them in the bathroom, and switched them with his companions’ nearly empty ones. Now he was immersed in a deep personal conversation with a man big and dumb enough to be a professional wrestler.

  They had met a few times at the warehouse where he had been working for what seemed like forever. Their friendship had grown stronger with every drink The Giant had put away. At last count, fourteen.

  Worse yet, his new friend had just purchased him an imposing vodka shot and was leaning close enough to be heard over the noise of the jukebox and patrons of the bar.

  Not much hope of getting out of this one.

  The Giant—Tim Carey, if he remembered correctly—raised his beer and held it motionless above the table. The gesture was obvious. Newberry raised his shot, tapped the glass against his new friend’s bottle, and tossed it back. The red-hot fluid seemed to stick about halfway down. He reached across the table and took the beer from Carey, finishing it in one gulp. He shook his head wildly, slammed a fist into his chest, and grinned.

  Carey laughed and waved to the bartender for another round.

  “Gimme a beer this time, man,” Newberry shouted over the din. “A couple more of those and I’m gonna fall right off this fucking bar stool.” Carey held up his empty bottle and two fingers.

  Newberry surveyed the bar. Dark and foul smelling, just like a waterfront dive should be. He theorized that all bar scents had the same components—sweat, smoke, beer, perfume, mold, grease. What made each particular establishment unique was the combination of those universal aromas. The Rat favored mold and grease.

  “I got this one, man,” Newberry said, grabbing Carey’s rock-hard right arm. He reached into his jeans and pulled out a wadded ball of bills, making a show of carefully peeling off a ten dollar bill and laying it on the bar.

  Carey leaned close again and started back into his story. Newberry only half listened. He had too many things on his mind to give the conversation the attention necessary to hear every word over the background noise. Somebody fed a few quarters into the jukebox and it blared a distorted version of an unidentifiable country song, making the conversation even harder to follow.

  Undercover operations were hard. Though he didn’t know Carey well, he liked him. Despite his imposing figure, Carey was known to be about as violent as a baby seal. His story related to problems that he was having at home with his son. He was afraid that he’d fallen in with a bad crowd. It was a story that Newberry had heard hundreds of times during his years as a cop. He turned his eyes away when the concerned father speculated on the possibility that his son was using drugs—and how dangerous that could be these days.

  Carey wasn’t the only friend he had made in his three-plus months at the warehouse. He had been to people’s homes for dinner, watched their children play in the Little League, lost money at drunken late-night poker games, and helped them move. A professional liar. His old boss used to say he had a real flair.

  A woman backed into him as the bouncers continued to herd people through the door with disinterested glances at their driver’s licenses. His beer sloshed over and splashed into his lap. Less he would have to drink, he reflected, taking a measured sip of what was left in the bottle.

  This assignment was better than most, he remembered, still half listening to the increasingly incoherent discourse from the next bar stool. At least he wasn’t setting up to arrest one of the people he had come to know so well. The thing he hated most about undercover work: the inevitable end—the arrest. Instead of a feeling of triumph, he always saw himself reflected in the eyes of the suspect. A betrayer.

  “I gotta go, man,” he said apologetically, leaning heavily on Carey’s leg. “I’m way too lucked up.”

  “You all right, Phil?”

  Newberry stood. “Yeah. I just need some fresh air and a bed, you know?”

  Carey gave him the thumbs-up. He knew.

  Newberry grabbed a small black backpack sitting at his feet and made his way across the bar with practiced unsteadiness. He waved clumsily to a knot of men playing pool and continued staggering toward the door. They shouted a few good-natured insults and turned back to their game.

  He took a hard right as he left the bar, breathing in the cool New York air. It wasn’t exactly the mountains, but it tasted just as sweet after six hours of nursing drinks in The Rat. He slipped the backpack on and tightened it around his waist. The illuminated dial of his watch read 12:13 A.M. as he passed through a narrow, trash-strewn alley.

  The warehouse was only about a ten-minute walk from the bar, but his indirect route increased the time to almost a half an hour. As he approached it, he rolled his head on his neck, checking for any effect from the vodka shot. None was apparent—undoubtedly the liquor had been absorbed by the cheesesteak and fries he had wolfed down right after work.

  He paused next to a large Dumpster overflowing with the by-products of waterfront commerce and scanned the street for almost five minutes. Satisfied that its daytime inhabitants were nestled into their beds, or propped up in a rickety ba
r somewhere, he pulled off his bright blue sweatshirt and stuffed it behind the Dumpster.

  Padding quietly across the dimly lit street in dark jeans, black turtleneck, and black hightop basketball shoes, he became aware that he wasn’t nervous at all. When Hobart had okayed this operation, his stomach had leaped into his throat, making it difficult to finish the conversation. His head had been spinning when he replaced the receiver.

  In the days since then, he had been mesmerized by the news reports. Every night he threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave, popped the top off a beer, and rested his tired body on the sofa. The rest of the night was spent surfing the channels, watching myriad reports on the CDFS’s actions from every possible perspective. He had come to three conclusions.

  One: If you had cable you could find some kind of related story twenty-four hours a day.

  Two: The public was getting more and more behind them.

  Three: It was working.

  Fear and apprehension had given way to pride and a sense of purpose. There had been endless rhetoric from the politicians about taking back America from the drug pushers—and now he was doing it.

  Newberry pressed his back against the warehouse and looked up. From this angle, it looked like a mile to the third-floor windows—the first ones not guarded with bars. He slipped along the wall, stopping at a squared-off alcove in the exterior wall. The warehouse wasn’t just a box—it was from an era when all structures were held to a certain standard of aesthetic beauty. The incut corner, in which he now stood, was adorned with creative brickwork, leaving two-inch ledges every few feet. Newberry tightened his pack one last time, and started his ascent.

  By carefully placing his feet on the small ledges and moving them up one leg at a time, he didn’t expect to have any problem getting to the third-story windows. He had been practicing this technique in his garage between a couple of two-by-sixes set up specifically for this purpose. Technically, it should be much easier on the actual building. The ledges were sharper and bit into the bottom of his shoes, and the alcove was quite a bit deeper than six inches, making the balance easier. For some reason, though, it seemed much harder.