by Andrew Gross
“Jeez, I heard the price of gasoline is sky-high out there,” he said, shaking his head, “but that’s a bit crazy, no?”
“The shooter was Hispanic,” Hauck went on, ignoring the remark, “and wore a red bandana over his head. Are you getting where I’m coming from, Mr. Vega? As he drove away, he shouted the name of a local girl. Josephina Ruiz, who, it turns out, was a teenager from Bridgeport who was accidentally drowned last summer at a public pool. Is any of this starting to ring a bell?”
“Sorry to bring you all the way down here, Lieutenant.” Vega jangled his chains. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, my alibi’s pretty tight.”
“We know your alibi’s tight, Mr. Vega. Later on that evening, another Hispanic male, also in a red bandana, was observed tossing a package into a Dumpster in Stamford. Inside the bag was a Tec-9 automatic that turned out to be the murder weapon.”
“You making some kind of a fashion statement, Lieutenant, with all these bandanas? ’Cause if you are, I know I can fit you out in one just right.”
Vega blew a kiss at Munoz. “What about you, jefe?”
Hauck went on, placing a hand on Freddy’s forearm to hold him back. “The vehicle spotted at the Dumpster in Stamford was a tricked-out Jetta with a blue and red cross on the back. The car was traced to a Hector Morales in Hartford. Mr. Morales is from the same town in the Dominican Republic that you hail from, has a rap sheet that reads like a novel, and is a known member of the DR-17 gang.”
“You come here with some kind of question to ask me?” Vega rocked back. “’Cause I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but, you know, it’s like almost time for Ellen and I was hoping to get in a little dancing. Got it? Talking to the police, without a warrant, ain’t exactly a credo with me.”
“My question, Nelson”—Hauck leaned forward, trying to cut through the prisoner’s smirking glare—“is what connection was there between DR-17 and Josephina Ruiz? This thing won’t be going away, Mr. Vega. I can put together a case right now against Morales that ties you in as an accessory after the fact. If it turns out Morales was in contact with you while you were in here, maybe more. The FBI’s all over it. A federal prosecutor was gunned down, Mr. Vega. If he wasn’t the intended target, then you don’t need that kind of attention at all, do you? Not on top of all you’re facing here.”
“Lemme get this straight.” The gang leader bunched his lips and nodded. “You come all the way down here like Homeland Security and try to scare me with some kind of TV Law & Order rap. You must’ve brought something with you, bro.”
“Just some good sense, to get this off your back.”
“That’s all?”
Hauck shrugged. “How ’bout I toss in an Xbox 360? That do the trick?”
Vega’s eyes sparkled. “That and an Escalade STS, maybe—to take me home. Shit, what show have you been watching, man? You think I need juice from any of you? Mr. big shot Greenwich detective? You think I’m gonna roll on my man because you come down here with your little badge and tell me you’re gonna smooth out my way with the FBI?” Vega shifted around to the guard. “Hey, Leon, you better stun me now, bro, because I don’t think I can sit and listen to this no longer. You know you ought to be on Leno, Lieutenant, because you are a fucking riot!”
When he turned back, Vega’s laugh had quieted and his grin was gone. “Now you copy this, bro—I don’t need your fucking juice. I don’t need you to smooth anything out for me. You think you got it all sized up? Well, here’s my juice: When I’m outta here, when I’m back home and you’re still scratching your heads trying to put together two and two, you come to me and I’ll smooth it all out for you. You copying that, bro?”
He laughed again, glancing back at the expressionless guard. When he turned back, Hauck grabbed the gang leader by the wrist.
“I leave, and the next time I see you it won’t be Ellen that’s on your mind.”
“Oooh, you scare me, niño.” Vega grinned.
Hauck got up. Something wasn’t right here and he was starting to sense what it was. “One more thing. The woman at the restaurant. Who turned in the gun. Annie Fletcher.”
“Who?”
“She’s off-limits now. She’s out of it. For good. You understand, Vega?”
“Not sure I know exactly what you’re meaning.” Vega looked back at Hauck with a smile.
“This is what I’m meaning.” Hauck leaned forward and took the man’s wrist. “One of your boys ever threatens her again…Demonstrates a sudden urge to try the crab cakes or maybe check out where she lives…I don’t care if a goddamn water glass falls off the bar in the wrong way…I’ll tear your head off. You understand? I’ll rip your little network so wide open, the nickels and dimes will fall out on the floor. You hear what I’m telling you, Nelson? You copying that, bro?”
“Yeah.” The gang leader pulled his wrist out of Hauck’s grip. “I’m copying, Lieutenant. So let me get this straight…” He leaned in close and pretended to be interested in something. “This mean that Xbox is off the table?”
“You don’t get it, do you, Nelson?” Hauck went to the door. “I’m gonna find out why that prosecutor had to die. Sooner or later, I’ll be back on you for it. That’s my credo.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Outside, Freddy Munoz turned to Hauck as soon as they got to the parking lot. “What the hell was going on in there?”
It wasn’t adding up to Hauck either.
“Why does a guy who’s on the hook for fifteen to twenty in a federal jail laugh in our faces like we’re a couple of high school bus monitors? What was it he said? ‘When I’m out of here you can come to me, if you’re still trying to put two and two together…’?”
Vega didn’t need any help. From any of them.
“You know what I’m thinking, Freddy? I’m thinking we can look for a year for some kind of connection between Josephina Ruiz and DR-17 and we’re never gonna find it. Because it’s not there. Vega was doing a favor for someone. He knows he’s never going to face those charges. The man’s protected. That’s what that act was about.”
Someone had needed someone killed, and they used DR-17 to do the job.
That’s why they shouted out “Josephina” at the scene. Why they left the newspaper article in the truck for them to find.
The whole thing was set up to only look like a retaliation.
“We’re looking under the wrong manhole cover. Who the hell wipes away a sheet like that? Who gets accorded that kind of protection?”
They stood there staring at each other from over the car.
“Jesus, Lieutenant, the guy’s a CI!”
A confidential informer. Or people were in bed with Vega—the right people.
Hauck smiled. “Which one of us is supposed to be the high-priced honcho here, Freddy?”
Freddy slid behind the wheel. Hauck climbed in next to him, his mind racing with thoughts he didn’t much like. They’d have to look at everything, he realized. Everything. Not just DR-17 or Josephina Ruiz, but who it was aimed at. Sunil. Sanger. Two plus two… Who the real target was that morning.
Munoz started up the engine. “Something else my mother always says, Lieutenant…”
“And that’s what?”
“She says, ‘I don’t like it when people cover me up in shit and tell me that it’s gonna make me grow.’”
Hauck looked at him. “That doesn’t sound at all like your mother, Freddy.”
“No,” the detective said, pulling out. “You’re right. That one’s me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The man in the flat tweed cap and Burberry raincoat, the political man from upstate, sat on a stool like any customer in the busy coffee section of Stew Leonard’s in Norwalk.
He was short, a little paunchy, had a wrinkly, round face and wore narrow reading glasses, his graying hair starting to thin. He had on a Shetland sweater over corduroys and Top-Siders, glancing occasionally at The Financial Times, indifferent to the throng of shoppers and laughi
ng kids passing by.
The person he was expecting, in a gray North Face jacket, wound his way through the crowd. “Let’s make this quick,” his friend said, pulling up a stool at the round table. “I don’t like being here.”
“Relax,” the man in the tweed cap said. He pushed up his glasses. “Probably more people here right now than any place else in the state. I drive down every once in a while just for the chowder. The best around. Course, then I’m also loading up the car with the filets and lobster tails and chocolate chip cookies…”
“I don’t really care about the fucking chowder, Ira,” the man in the North Face jacket said, his handsome, athletic looks just beginning to dull into middle age. He leaned forward. “My kids are in the car…”
“That’s right.” The upstate man nodded. “You still have kids at home. Private school, isn’t it? Then college…”
“Ira, what is it you want, please…?”
The man in the cap took the reading glasses off his brow and folded the paper. He nodded in an obliging sort of way. “Okay, champ…” His expression stiffened. “Things are starting to move in a way no one’s very happy with up there. There’s a line of questioning I’m hearing, and if it leads anywhere…You’re aware the local police have been down to visit your boy?”
“He’s not my boy. I’ve never even met him. You didn’t exactly ask me to handle a bond issue, Ira.”
“Still, it was you who arranged things to be handled through them…”
“Through an intermediary. You wanted things done, I got them done for you. That’s all.”
“Why don’t we just leave it that the revenge motive doesn’t seem to be carrying a whole lot of weight any longer.”
The younger man stared back. “What is it you want me to do, Ira?”
“What do I want you to do?” Ira grabbed his arm. “I want you to do what you always do, guy. I want you to fix things. Isn’t that what that showy new house is all about? And how you pay for your kids to go to that school?” The man’s face bore a smile, but it was a smile that cut right through him, an unwavering sternness in his eyes. “You didn’t think it was that six handicap we’ve been paying for all these years.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand. I understand why this is a problem for you…I’m just down here to make certain you understand. Because what you don’t want is for certain things to come out that don’t need to. What you don’t want is for a certain police detective to start honing in on the wrong line of inquiry. So finesse it, shortstop. Make it go away. That’s your particular skill, right? You have a backup plan. Maybe it’s time to get it rolling. That’s why I’m down here—the chowder notwithstanding. Are we clear?”
The man in the North Face took a napkin off the table and tore off the edges. He nodded.
“I think I’m going to need something a little more definitive than that, champ. Are we clear?”
Their eyes met, the government man’s gaze unmistakable.
The man in the North Face felt his stomach clench. “Clear as a golf ball on grass, Ira.”
“Good.” The government man stood up and folded the newspaper under his arm. “Now what you oughta do now is head back to those cute little kids of yours. Go out, take ’em to McDonald’s, kick the ball around, whatever you had planned for the day.” He opened a plastic bag and took out a box of Stew’s chocolate chip cookies. “Here…rated best in the state.” He pushed it over and the younger man took it. “On me…”
“There are other people involved, you know. There’s other ways for this to get out.”
“Finesse.” The man winked amiably. “I think that’s the key word here. We’ll handle our end; you just make sure you do yours. What you don’t want is for this sort of investigation to fly back and take a dump in your lap. Know what I mean?”
“Or yours,” the younger man said, angered.
“Or mine…” The government man nodded. “You’re right.” He balled his napkin into his cup, crumpled them into a ball, and tossed them into the trash. “But let’s just say that in this state, I’ll take my chances on that one. Agreed?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Keith Kramer walked out of the Pequot Woods Resort and Casino in Uncasville into the predawn darkness, not from under the shimmering forty-story glass teepee that towered above the lobby, but with a nod to the waving guard at the rear door marked STAFF ONLY and into the anonymity of the employee parking lot.
He’d just finished up his midnight-to-six-A.M. shift as a pit boss for the casino. It was his job to watch the tables, make sure the payouts were okay, and stay alert for a sign of any known card counters or professionals. Keep an eye on the dealers too.
Basically, Keith watched hundreds of thousands of dollars each night changing hands with only the clink of a few chips, his share of the tip pool that night falling into his.
All that was about to change.
Keith found his car—he had the Voyager tonight. Their Beemer was in the shop. The payments were getting hard on that one too. He had taken the job as a dealer ten years ago, just to hold them over when Keith’s job in the accounting department of Swiss Re fell prey to a merger, and Judy, riding the bubble, got her real estate license. Then Cameron came along, numero uno, and the casino dangled this promotion in front of him—the health plan, another twenty grand. Now, years later, he was still wearing the boxy navy jacket and black tie and going home wondering what had ever happened to his degree from Wesleyan and with the sour taste of a futureless career in his mouth.
He knew he was falling behind. His college friends were doing deals on Wall Street or had become partners in law practices—and he was living upstate in Madison, in a house Judy had found when the market was soaring, and utilizing math skills he had mastered in the seventh grade.
Now she hadn’t sold a house in months. He still read the journals. Still devoured the chess column in the Times. He put aside dreams of going back to grad school or working in research for one of the medical companies nearby. Now they had three kids. Every night, he just stood there watching the tables, rolling around in his mind some foolproof way he could out-smart the house.
He started the car, removing a plastic soda cup belonging to one of the kids out of the divider.
He never noticed the headlights that pulled out after him.
Keith veered out of the casino onto the highway as he did every morning, straddling the point where opportunity collided with desperation, his mind a blurring roulette wheel of red and black. There were ways. Ways when no one was looking. When the cameras were off. So much money, it would never be noticed. The sky was just beginning to streak with light.
Cam had a peewee hockey game tonight and Ashleigh trumpet. He would catch them, help them with their homework, maybe catch the third period of the Bruins game on cable. Then it was a quick meal while Judy put them both to bed. Head back to work all over again.
He was running through his mind how at barely forty-one, you could feel this old.
It was all about probability. The probability of ever busting free from your life. Balanced against the risk. The risk of being caught.
Everything was always on the pass line. Until you rolled the dice.
As Keith merged onto 395 South, he felt a little drowsy. There was a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise at the intersection. He stopped there every now and then for a wake-up coffee. He steered the Voyager onto the ramp and pulled in.
The Escalade pulled in behind.
He took the key out of the ignition and just sat there. His heavy head came to rest on the wheel. He was tired—tired of falling behind, tired of not doing something. But he knew he never would. Right, Keith? These were dreams, dreams he would never act on. Dreams he would roll around in his head every shift, watching the tables. While he waited for the housing market to click back in.
He went to open the door, but someone was standing there, blocking him.
He felt a constriction in his chest that something w
asn’t right.
But by then the passenger door had opened and a dark-skinned man in a hooded sweatshirt climbed onto the seat next to him. “Yo, Keith…”
The man removed a strange-looking weapon from under his top and sent fifty thousand volts streaming into Keith’s chest, immobilizing him, all his dreams suddenly blurring like a spinning roulette wheel. Red-black-red-black.
Red.
Black.
Then just black.
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
This was Hector Morales’s kind of party.
All it had taken was the right kind of wink to the fox at the bar, a wink that held the promise of free-flowing lines of blow, a bottle of Patrón to go along with it, and the lure of whatever came to mind afterward.
Now they were back in his room, clothes littered on the floor, her thick blanket of black hair bobbing up and down between his thighs, her tongue in an adroit rhythm only a seasoned pro could devise.
Hector leaned back with his hands behind his head. “You sure know how to do that, mama.”
She rose and crawled on top of him. Her breasts were everything he’d imagined when he’d pressed up to her at the bar, and her smooth ass slid easily over his muscular body, straddling him. “You just wait.”
He had been back in the DR for over a week. He knew he had to keep a low profile, maybe for a month or two. Maybe all winter. But if this was any indication of what a connection to the right people and throwing around a little cash could bring, it wouldn’t be torture. He was a big man back here, the prodigal son returned home stuffed with dollars, having carved out his mark in the States.
“Come on up here, mama.”
He would show her how it was done. He pulled her up by the shoulders, hands rubbing hard and possessively across her small yet perfect breasts. See what’s available for just a couple of lines? They would do anything. Anything for the power it held.
