Without Honor - 01

by David Hagberg

  The same voice as before answered on the first ring. “Yes?”

  “I want to see Basulto,” McGarvey said. “I’m going in, sixty minutes from now. Tell them to expect me.”

  “We’ll need more time.”

  “Sixty minutes. Talk to Trotter.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Call him.”

  “That will take time.”

  “Where is he being kept?”

  “Can you hold?”

  “I’m at a pay phone,” McGarvey said. The line went immediately dead. He held the telephone between his shoulder and cheek as he lit a cigarette. He looked at his watch. It was a couple minutes past nine-thirty. He thought about Evita alone and frightened for all of these years. And he could practically feel Baranov’s presence, watching him, knowing his every move. It had become clear to him that all of this had been carefully engineered by the Russian as early as ten months ago when he had gone to Evita in New York to tell her that an ex-CIA agent would be coming to her for information. The implications were staggering. And for the first time since Trotter had come to him in Switzerland, McGarvey was beginning to have some doubts in his own abilities.

  “He’s at a residential motel in Hialeah, near the race track,” the Washington man said. He gave McGarvey the address. “Make certain that you are not followed.”

  McGarvey hung up. He went to his car and drove immediately over to the address although they weren’t expecting him for an hour. He wanted to see who else might show up. The only way to survive, he figured, was to understand the possibility that Baranov had ears everywhere.

  The Surfside Motel was a full five miles from any of the beaches and looked as if it had been neglected for a lot of years. It was located six blocks from the racetrack on a broad street that specialized in car dealerships and fast food restaurants, but was tucked behind a low cement block fence that was further screened by a mostly unkempt line of bamboo. There was a sad, dirty, little outdoor pool between the fence and the driveway that McGarvey could just see through the brush. A few plastic chaise lounges and two rusting patio tables flanked the pool. McGarvey pulled into a MacDonald’s just across the street and went inside where he got a cup of coffee and took a seat by the window. He could see the motel office beneath the canopy down the short driveway, as well as the line of second floor units, barely a third of which seemed to be occupied. There was no movement. McGarvey checked his watch. It hadn’t yet been fifteen minutes since he’d telephoned Washington. They were not expecting him for another three quarters of an hour. It would have taken more than fifteen minutes for even Baranov to arrange something. He was fairly confident that if anyone was going to show up here tonight, he’d beat them. But then we were never certain, were we? It was part and parcel of the business. It had been a long time for him, this over the shoulder feeling, this sustained watchfulness, the edge that made the difference between survival and failure. Christ, it galled him to think that he’d been so easily sucked back into the morass. “Once it’s in your blood there’s no going back,” he’d been told once, but for the life of him he could not think who’d said it. His trouble now was that he had begun to have difficulty distinguishing between what was good and real and what was not, between what was truth and what were lies. Who to trust, who to love, where to run, where to hide. He thought again about Evita and about Darby Yarnell. They both were under Baranov’s spell. They were the man’s strength, but they also were his weakness.

  Traffic was light. No one had entered or left the motel. McGarvey went out to his car and drove at a normal speed twice around the block, watching his rearview mirror, watching the other cars, watching the few pedestrians. But there was no one there. No one watching. No one had come.

  He pulled into the motel’s driveway, passed the office, and parked at the far end of the building. He switched off the headlights and the engine and sat in the darkness for a few moments, watching, listening, waiting for someone to come, for a curtain to part. But the motel could have been a haven for the dead or the deaf. He took out his gun, checked to make sure it was ready to fire, then got out of his car and climbed the stairs to the second-floor balcony, where he stopped in the shadows. The light in the exit sign was burned out. The place smelled of garbage and of sulphur water and urine and something else, something spicy and exotic. He slipped the Walther’s safety catch off and moved quietly along the balcony on the balls of his feet. Now he could hear music from one of the rooms, and conversation, perhaps from a television, from another. Basulto was being kept in 224, which was four rooms from the end. When McGarvey reached the door he paused before knocking. No light came from behind the curtains, nor could he hear any sounds from within.

  He knocked. Softly.

  “It’s open,” someone inside said.

  McGarvey flattened himself against the cement block wall, brought his gun up, and with his left hand eased the door open a couple of inches.

  The room stank of stale beer and cigarettes. It was dark.

  “It’s me, Artime. From the house in Switzerland. Do you recognize my voice?”

  “It’s him,” Basulto said cautiously after a second or two.

  “Are you sure?” someone else asked.

  “Yeah,” Basulto said. “It’s okay, Mr. McGarvey. Just a minute, we’ll have a light.”

  McGarvey remained against the wall as the light came on. He could see into the room. The double beds were unmade. Dirty laundry lay everywhere, along with empty beer cans and liquor bottles. Ashtrays were overflowing, the bureau and a small table were piled with MacDonald’s bags and wrappers, the remnants of a large pizza still in its flat cardboard box, and several potato chip bags. Basulto, wearing nothing more than baggy trousers and a dirty tank T-shirt, stood by the bathroom door. A husky man with thick dark hair stood next to him. His weapon was drawn.

  “I’m alone,” McGarvey said, making a show of lowering his gun as he stepped around the corner into the room.

  “You’d better be,” the agent across the room said.

  The second man stood in the corner at the window, his gun out, his eyes wide. He wore a jacket. McGarvey got the impression he might have just come in.

  “I’m here to talk. Nothing more.”

  The two agents looked at each other, and then they lowered their weapons, uncocking the hammers. “You’re five minutes late,” the one by the window snapped. He was nervous.

  McGarvey closed the door, then pushed the window curtain aside so that he could look out. Nothing moved below. No one had come. No one was out there, and yet he could not shake the feeling that someone was looking over his shoulder. That Baranov, or whoever, knew that he was here and was watching him.

  “Is this it?” Basulto asked. “Are we ready to get that bastard, Mr. McGarvey? You and me?”

  He turned back.

  “I hope to Christ you came in clean,” the one by Basulto said, gruffly. “It’s one thing being cooped up in this pigsty, but it would be another defending this little prick.”

  “See?” Basulto cried. “See what I have to put up with here.”

  “Why don’t you two take a walk. Give yourself a break.” McGarvey looked at Basulto. “I’d like half an hour with my friend here.”

  Again the agents exchanged glances. “What the hell.” The bigger one shrugged. “They said cooperate, so we’ll cooperate.”

  “I’ll take full responsibility,” McGarvey said.

  “You’re goddamned right you will,” the big one said. He grabbed a jacket and he and his partner left without bothering to look back.

  McGarvey locked and chained the door. Alone, Basulto seemed a little more sure of himself than with Trotter’s two men. He didn’t seem so tense, though there still was a wariness about him. His life, at least, according to what he had told them in Switzerland, was on the line. Which meant he would cooperate so long as it would benefit him, but only as far as he felt was necessary and no farther. McGarvey swept the debris off the table with a clatter, sat d
own, put his feet up, and lit a cigarette. Basulto wasn’t impressed, but McGarvey knew he had his attention.

  “There’ve been some killings,” McGarvey said.

  “What killings? Where? Nobody’s told me a thing down here. I just sit and wait and sweat in this stink hole. What are you talking about?”

  McGarvey loosened his tie. “He was a friend of mine, Artime. A very good friend. I had him make a few inquiries for me, and he was shot to death for his trouble. Left a wife and children.”

  “I told you, goddamnit. I sat there and told you over and over again. But nobody would believe me. Called me a slimeball. Well, maybe now you believe me.”

  “He’ll probably be coming after you next.”

  A momentary look of alarm crossed Basulto’s face. McGarvey got the impression that it might have been a put on. But then Basulto was an unusual man and hard to read.

  “Then we’d better get the bastard.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Have you got a plan?” Basulto asked eagerly.

  “I’m going to need your help, Artime,” McGarvey said, patiently. He took a drag on his cigarette. He wanted to be almost anyplace except here.

  Beside the dresser was a large paper bag. Basulto pulled a couple of beers out of the bag, opened them, and brought them over to the table. A peace offering. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his complexion was red and splotchy. He’d probably been boozing it pretty hard, cooped up here like this. He smelled ripe.

  “Anything,” he said eagerly. “I’m a pretty good trigger man. Christ, Mr. McGarvey, I don’t give a shit, see. As long as you guys hold up your end of the bargain, I’ll do my part. Anything.”

  “We appreciate it, believe me,” McGarvey said, accepting a beer. He motioned for the Cuban to sit down.

  “Anything, Mr. McGarvey,” Basulto said sitting across the table. “I mean anything. Goddamnit, I love this country. You could be Roger Harris’s twin, you know.”

  “He was quite a guy.”

  “Yes, he was …”

  “Ambitious, from what I gather,” McGarvey said. He took a deep drink of the warm beer, then raised the can to Basulto; two conspirators gathered to share a little secret.

  “You talked to someone else about him,” Basulto said. “You looked up his record. Found out about him. All right, so what are you doing here? What do you want from me? I told you I’d give you anything.”

  “The truth, Artime,” McGarvey said.

  Basulto drank his beer with a nervous energy, as if he were a man just off the desert who’d suddenly found himself in the midst of a grand party; he didn’t know which way to look or how to behave.

  “Okay. What do you want? Just ask me,” he said defiantly. “I’ve gone over this so many times, not only with them, but in my own mind, that I’m not sure of anything. Do you know what I’m saying? You capice?”

  He’d internationalized his act, but it was no more convincing than it had been in Switzerland.

  “Just a couple of minor points, nothing terribly important. Just something I have to get straight in my mind before we fly off the handle. Lives are at stake here, you know.”

  “Yeah, mine for one.”

  “Back to Miami. I’m interested in that period,” McGarvey said softly. “After Roger Harris had recruited you and you’d been sent up here for training. I’d like to know about that. You never really did cover those days in any detail.”

  Basulto just looked at him, his eyes unblinking.

  “I’d like to know about the team that trained you. Their names if you can remember them. Maybe their methods. What sorts of things they were filling your head with in those days. What kind of a place they put you up in.”

  “A dump,” Basulto said, and he took another drink of his beer. “Not far from here. But it’s all gone by now. Torn down. Progress.”

  McGarvey handed him a cigarette and held a light for him.

  “Who was it got wasted?” he asked. “Anyone I know?”

  “There were two of them.”

  Basulto’s hand shook.

  “One of them was looking up your records, and the other was Darby Yarnell’s old boss.”

  “Christ,” Basulto swore softly. “Christ.” He glanced at the door. “Were you followed down here?”

  “He knows I’m here, Artimé. And there’s a good chance he knows you’re here, too.”

  “Oh, well, that’s just goddamned fine now, isn’t it. Why didn’t you take out a full page ad in the newspapers? Send the bastard a printed invitation.”

  “We’re running out of time.”

  “No shit.”

  “I’m going to need your help. The truth now, it’s the only thing that’s going to save your ass. We’re going to have to burn Yarnell, and whoever he’s working with. But in order for me to do that, I need to know everything.”

  “It’s his army, isn’t it? His mob.”

  McGarvey looked at the man in amazement. “Where’d you hear that?” he asked softly.

  Basulto hadn’t heard or understood the question. He was sweating now, nervously tapping the cigarette against the edge of the ashtray until the ash fell off. “I don’t know how the hell we’re going to nail him now. You were supposed to be the best. What a joke.”

  “You mentioned Yarnell’s mob. Where’d you hear about that?”

  “I don’t know,” Basulto said absently, his mind still on his own troubles. He looked up. “Mr. Trotter mentioned that we were going to have to be very careful. He was talking with Mr. Day and some of the others. They said Yarnell had his own private army.”

  “A mob?” McGarvey asked again, wondering why it was that sometimes the little things bothered him more than the bigger issues.

  “Mob. Army. Crowd. Christ, I don’t know. Crucify me for a choice of words.” Basulto was becoming agitated again. “If he sends his army down here after us, we won’t have a chance in hell.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Basulto shook his head. “The sonofabitch has managed to survive this long, hasn’t he?”

  “But we know about him now.”

  “So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to talk him to death?”

  “Do you think it would work?”

  “Not fucking likely!” Basulto snapped. “You’re going to have to blow him away. It’s the only way. He’s too smart for you. Roger Harris got in his way, and he got wasted for his stupidity. Don’t you be next, because this time my ass is really on the line. I got no place else to go.”

  “He’s working with someone, Artimé.”

  “Yeah, his army.”

  “He’s a spy. He has a control officer. Someone who calls the shots. Someone he reports to. He’s got his own Roger Harris.”

  “The Russian from Mexico City.”

  “Perhaps. But that was a long time ago.” McGarvey was watching the Cuban’s eyes. There was no clear-cut reaction.

  “Maybe he’s still around.”

  “It’s possible. But Yarnell has someone else he’s working with, or for. Someone in Washington.”

  Now Basulto’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  Again Basulto glanced toward the door. “Mr. Trotter? Could it be him? He’s trying to burn us both and keep his hands clean? It sounds like something Yarnell might have done.”

  “Had you ever met him before they brought you to Switzerland?”

  “No.”

  “How about Mr. Day?”

  “No, never saw either of them until they showed up down here.”

  “Yarnell never made an appearance during your training here in Miami?”

  “I would have recognized him in Mexico City. We went through all this before. He never came here. Neither did Roger, for that matter. I was sent up here for my training, and when I was finished they shipped me back to Havana.”

  “So how many people were here in Miami for you, Artimé? Two? Three? A dozen?”
>
  “Two of them, mostly. And don’t ask because I can’t remember their names, except for the communications expert. He was the third man. Showed up for a couple of days then left. He was called Scotty. Had just gotten out of the army.”

  “How is it you remembered his name and not the others’?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just one of those things, you know. He was nice, knew what he was talking about, didn’t have an ax to grind. Leastways not with me.”

  “The others did?”

  “They didn’t really give a shit. I was just another piece of dog meat as far as they were concerned.”

  “Anyone else stop by?” McGarvey asked. “Just pop in for a visit or a look-see? Anyone introduce themselves?”