Shadows and Lies

by Ronald Watkins

  Asking Carmine for a car had been a simple decision since Powers was certain any vehicle he obtained otherwise would have a transponder planted in it somewhere. The behemoth smelled like a cross between showroom new car and leather musk.

  The rain picked up by the time he pulled into a 24-hour truck stop for a map. The yawning night manager was nearing the end of his shift from the looks of him. Powers poured a large coffee into a styrofoam cup, pressed a red lid down tightly, then went to the counter. “I’ll take two packs of Camel filters.” Outside, he dodged puddles and ducked his way to the glistening Cadillac.

  The first drag of cigarette smoke was heaven, better even than he’d imagined, and his imagination had been fertile. The second was nearly as good, but the third left him hacking and light headed. From the map he selected a path to I-66 which he picked up the other side of Arlington.

  It was dawn out there somewhere, but Estelle was a dark blanket over the morning. Once on the interstate, Powers smoked slowly, content to enjoy the pleasure and guilt as he listened to the steady thumping of the window wipers. He experienced a sense of release at being out of the claustrophobic city, to be moving towards something.

  If he recalled his history right, the fledgling Union Army with its 120-day enlistees marched from Washington along this route, eager to “whup” the equally untested rebels. The outcome, Powers believed, was determined by the simple fact that the Yankees were invaders while the Confederates were defending their homes. A sign announced, “Manassas, 11 miles.” The sides couldn’t agree on slavery, the name of the war or even the names for their battles, the South selecting the nearest significant settlement, the North preferring landmarks, so the Union defeat was either the battle of Bull Run, after a creek running through the contested field, or Manassas, for a sleepy town, in northern Virginia. Gettysburg was not far to his north. He wondered if he’d ever see it.

  Powers was not convinced he would find the President’s mistress at the end of this drive. The video and listening devices in Dorat’s apartment confirmed with near certainty that she was an agent and he was prepared to accept Nasr’s statement she worked for the French. They had not been willing to risk plants in Marei’s apartment, but with Dorat being a friend Marei, might have been indiscreet in Dorat’s apartment, this in addition to whatever Dorat observed or learned otherwise.

  It was also a way to keep an eye on the place in the event their agent aroused suspicion. Powers found it difficult to accept that Dorat had been a professional at the game, since her reaction when they met was so utterly plausible, but he didn’t dismiss the thought out of hand. If she was a pro, she had been a consummate actress, and that made everything about her and what she said, suspect.

  Which raised the key question that if she was an amateur, recruited because she already worked for Air France, then it was plausible she had let the name “fountains” thoughtlessly slip. It had been so casually uttered that Powers had not picked up on it immediately. But if she was so skilled she could pull off the performance he had witnessed, then speaking the word was no accident, but part of a plan. If that were the case, the French were likely amused it had taken him so long to put it together. That also Nasr was an agent, and after their conversation, Powers should expect a reception when he arrived. With an agent planted so close to Marei, they knew a great deal of what had happened, and they would be wanting answers from the White House emissary who showed his face.

  Even if Dorat had let the name slip innocently, as an amateur might, Power’s call had alerted the French, since they were almost certainly still monitoring Dorat’s telephone. That is if the Metropolitan Police finding their video devices hadn’t caused them to hustle off to wherever French spooks hid.

  The mountain cabin was still the best lead he’d developed so far, indeed the only plausible one. He doubted he had any more time on this and he had no doubt what would happen to Marei when Lily and Shanken found her. Powers didn’t hold a single card in this game and he took very seriously Alta’s warning, despite his ambivalent feelings about her. The way it was playing at this point, he gave himself the half-life of a firework on the Fourth of July.

  That assumed, of course, he survived whatever waited for him at the Seven Fountains cabin. A gust of wind peppered with heavy rain rocked the immense car slightly, and he increased the tempo of the wipers. He leaned forward, punched the lighter then lit another cigarette now, absent a residual guilt. Hell, why worry about his health? The way things were going, he’d be lucky to finish the pack.

  FOURTEEN

  Chicago, Six Years Earlier

  Carmine Gennarelli was not the most notorious of the contemporary Chicago mobsters but he was the most successful, if money and power were the measure, and they generally were. Despite his street-talk manner, he was no one’s fool. From the old school, he still recruited his soldiers out of the isolated villages of Sicily, or when necessary from the first generation of American Sicilians, no mixed marriages accepted. He began with traditional mob interests in gambling and loan sharking, and still had a hand in them, though they were no longer the big money maker.

  When Carmine broke out on his own in the 1960's it had been because he’d seen the need to launder the mob’s drug money. The bosses complained constantly about the piles of cash they had on hand, and how unreliable and expensive laundering was. Carmine recruited a bright CPA, his sister’s son, and told him what he needed. The young man organized a series of off-shore, Belgium and Swiss companies along with a maze of bank accounts. He then created a host of legitimate corporations in the United States, nearly all of them essentially dormant but ready for activation on a moment’s notice. The actual businesses begun or acquired were located primarily in the Sunbelt.

  For Carmine’s cut, Powers heard figures ranging from three to ten percent of what was laundered. He funneled dirty cash through and into these entities in a labyrinth so complex and ever changing it defied divination. Money left the country, entered the country, left again then returned, passing through at least a dozen closely held largely foreign corporations, and no fewer than five banks in at least three countries, with ironclad secrecy laws. What emerged was legally taxed dollars, washed so clean they might just have easily have come by armored truck direct from the mint.

  In the United States, Carmine controlled three CPA firms that Powers knew about, at least two law firms and through indecipherable layers, no less than 200 corporations, three of which listed assets of more than $200 million, and a fourth which was traded on the Big Board. He was so successful few executives in any of his companies even suspected the source of the seed money or why their out-of-country interests remained consistently profitable.

  Despite his success, Carmine lived modestly, at least for a very rich and powerful mobster with an estate in Lake Forest and a penthouse in Glencoe, and preferred playing dominos at a social club to wearing Armani suits, lavender shirts and gold pinky rings. When he wasn’t reviewing balance sheets, with his now very-rich nephew, he spent his days smoothing over turf fights between rival groups, and relished his role as mediator which was the reason, Powers believed, he still talked like a street hood.

  Perhaps the greatest measure of Carmine’s success was that he had but a single adult arrest, for extortion, when he was 19 years old, and a quarter-million-dollar cash campaign contribution to the right Chicago pols, caused his name to be placed on the list of infamous midnight pardons Jimmy Carter was talked into signing the night before leaving the White House.

  Carmine and Powers’ first meeting was not auspicious. Powers was assigned by the chief to devise a means for stopping the extraordinarily violent Colombians from taking over the local drug operations. The cities which hadn’t seen the threat had cause to regret it. The Colombians murdered entire families so that no member remained to later seek revenge and to induce terror in their opponents. They aggressively recruited children to sell dope in schools and were not reluctant to murder judges and their families for signing search warr
ants. Wherever they planted themselves they worked to corrupt the entire legal system. Even if they weren’t successful in St. Louis, the warfare that would result from the effort would spill over violently into quiet neighborhoods.

  Powers learned that the weak-kneed local mafia boss was calling on Carmine to intercede and negotiate an acceptable deal with the Colombians. Powers contacted Carmine for a sit-down immediately following his only face-to-face with the Colombians. He agreed to meet in a small family run Italian restaurant in Cicero, one Al Capone was rumored to have frequented.

  “Fuckin’ beaners!” Carmine muttered as he squeezed into the booth. The mob boss was not tall, perhaps five foot eight inches in height and weighed somewhere between 220 and 240 pounds. His hair was receding and Powers made him to be in his late fifties. Three muscle men placed themselves strategically about the room. “Who the fuck they think they are? Own this goddamn place? We’ll show those bastards. You’re the fuckin’ cop, right?”

  “That’s right,” Powers answered taking a measure of the man. “I’m the fuckin’ cop and you’re the fuckin’ mobster.”

  Carmine’s face was immobile for a long moment before he said, “You gotta mouth, know that?”

  Powers shrugged. “Are we going to eat? The smell here is driving me crazy. Is it as good as I think?”

  Carmine stared at Powers for another long count. “What the fuck you think? My niece runs it. The food’s from my own mamma’s house in Alcamo, may she rest in peace. You think we’d meet in some shithole Eye-talian Garden or some other fuckin’ place? What the fuck you say your name was?”

  “Call me Danny, Carmine.” The mob bossed scowled at the familiarity. “I’m your new friend.”

  “I don’t have no cop friends.”

  “In that case, I’m your new cop ally.”

  Carmine grunted at the thought. “That’ll be a switch.”

  Powers smiled thinly. “I doubt it. Let’s order, then you can tell me why the Colombians are fuckin’ beaners.’”

  Between mouthfuls, Carmine told him there would be no peace with the Colombians. They had taken the negotiation attempt as a measure of weakness and delivered what amounted to an ultimatum. Worse, they were contemptuous. Carmine was ready to start a street war on the spot. The pair of them negotiated the ground rules at that table over espresso and a hard cookie which resembled biscotti but was better. No civilian casualties. If there were, the police would investigate without gloves. But if the bodies were Columbian, and discreetly done, better yet carted off, all Carmine’s soldiers would face was a routine, official look see.

  “Your bosses know you’re agreein’ to this?”

  “What they know, Carmine, is they don’t want bodies in the streets of St. Louis, not where they don’t usually appear at least, and no more elsewhere than we’ve got already. They don’t want judges murdered in their beds for doing their duty. They don’t want crack sold on school yards to third graders. They don’t want twelve year old hit men. That’s what they know.”

  After that, Carmine saw to the turf fight himself. Powers’ role was to deliver his part of the deal. More than one detective he ordered to back off a murder investigation was convinced he was on the take. He made a number of enemies he’d just as soon not have, but the Colombians were stopped cold and Powers gained new friends in high places, not all of them on the legal side of the law. He even managed to persuade Carmine to force the new St. Louis mob boss he installed, to control the existing drug trade to keep it from encroaching further into what remained of the city’s middle class areas. The pair went their own ways cordially but hardly as friends.

  Powers was never comfortable with the role he played. He’d been instructed to let Carmine think his proposal was his own when, in fact, the chief and mayor had concocted it. Powers had explained that he was an officer of the law, sworn to catch criminals, not pick sides. But the reality was that the chief and mayor decided where law enforcement in St. Louis would direct its efforts, and it was their call. They and their predecessors had long ago determined that the drug trafficking couldn’t be stopped, and for reasons of practicality or perhaps corruption, they’d rather it was handled with the crew they already knew. That was the way of things and Powers played what he viewed as his seedy part in it.

  Two years later Powers and Carmine met again, but in very different circumstances. Carmine approached Powers for assistance in keeping the Russian mob from planting itself in the Midwest. The organization was headed by a former KGB colonel named Zorya and its conduct made the Colombians look like bumbling beginners. Powers guardedly passed the request along, verbally, and found himself assigned to a joint state, Federal and Canadian task force already targeting Zorya. Powers was ordered to liaison with Carmine since the two already knew one another, and Carmine had approached him seeking help. Once again the political decision, both in Canada and by those in American law enforcement running that side of the operation, was better the crooks they knew than outsiders.

  The task force ultimately had only limited success but while Powers was part of it there was an event that cemented Carmine’s loyalty to Powers permanently. The task force steering committee wanted Carmine to go after Zorya more aggressively, that is, start a street war. The idea was to reduce the number of men available to Zorya since the mafia had the clear edge in bodies. Since the Russian was known to take hostage the families of opponents whenever possible, Powers was asked to approach Carmine about letting them place his family under police protection just to be on the safe side.

  “You trust these fuckers?” Carmine asked. Their relationship was awkward since the mob boss had been the one asking Powers for the favor.

  “I trust them to see to their own interests.”

  Carmine looked relieved to hear the answer. “Yeah. Me too. What they really want is to put my family under their guns and use it to squeeze me when this is over. But they gotta point that I’d be blind not to see, and there’sa problem I’m facin’ and gotta do something about, so maybe you can help me out here. Some guys are lookin’ to make a deal with that Roosky, Zorya, and take over my business. It’s nothin’ I can’t handle usually, but with the talk that I’m too weak to handle this myself and brought cops in... Well you can see my position here. The way it is, I gotta take care of the Rooshins first then see to the others, you understand? I ain’t lettin’ Feds take my family but I’m not so sure about some of the boys seein’ to them either, if you know what I’m talkin’ about. There’s some that’re okay, but not enough, cause I’m gonna need ‘em myself.”

  “I don’t understand what you want.”

  “I’m sayin’ I’ll deal with the Roosky like the suits want, then I’ll see to business with my people. And I gotta have my own safe while I do it, so I’ll let you take care of my family.”

  “Me! I’m not a bodyguard, Carmine.”

  “You’re a smart fella, at least some of the time. I trust you for this, so I’ll do what they want, but for my own reasons.” The Sicilian’s manner altered subtlety but unmistakably. “Just remember. This is between you and me, not me and them. You understand that? If my family dies, or so much as a single hair on even one of their heads is touched... I don’t need to say it, but you just better be dead too.”

  Carmine told Powers he’d give him one of the soldiers he trusted to help. He turned out to be a stone faced Sicilian named Luigi with a chopped off double barrel shotgun and no English.

  ~

  Powers contacted Dorsey Tristan, a retired judge he trusted, and asked for the loan of his summer place in St. Charles County, across the Mississippi River from Grafton, Illinois. It was more like a residence in suburbia than a vacation retreat but the back was covered by the river, one side faced a bluff, leaving only the entrance and one wooded area to guard. It was off season and no one would have a legitimate reason to be walking in the woods or driving to the house. Powers considered his primary security to be the fact that no one, including Carmine, knew where his family was.
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  Powers drove Sheila, the children, and Luigi to Campbell airport, north of Chicago and from there, to a strip at the town of St. Charles. For all his business commitment to Sicilians, Carmine had married an 18 year old petite blond haired beauty from outside of Milan. Sheila – Powers never learned her Italian first name – was then just 36, more than 20 years younger than Carmine. There were two blond haired daughters, Gina, age 17, Francesca, age 15, and the center of Carmine’s universe, dark haired 11 year old Giuseppe, named for his grandfather. By the time they arrived at the summer house Powers was Sheila’s confidant.

  “Carmine’s going to win this thing, Danny, I have no doubts about that,” she said on the short drive from the airport. “He’s been so worried about us lately though, his mind hasn’t been on business, so I told him I thought this was best all around.” Sheila retained little of her original accent and had assimilated Carmine’s speech over the years, though she disciplined the children in Italian and they reacted as if she’d snapped a whip. “Carmine trusts you, Danny. I know he respects you, and that isn’t easy in his book. We’ll make it simple for you,” she said with a wink, patting the top of his thigh with her dainty hand, “I promise you. Yeah! Look at that!” The judge’s house suddenly appeared at the end of the long winding drive. “It’s pretty nice. Better than I expected. We’ll be just fine here. You’ll see.”

  She was organized within minutes, while Powers walked the grounds with Luigi, communicating with hand gestures, his tone of voice and facial expression. The man reminded Powers of a figure out of the Sicilian part of the second Godfather movie. In addition to his shotgun Luigi also carried a very old Colt .38 revolver. Powers had a pump Remington 12 gauge, a Smith and Wesson .45 handgun, and an air weight .38 Bodyguard model.

  On the first evening Gina, the oldest daughter, quite pretty and until now completely silent, engaged Powers in a brief, seemingly innocent conversation. When Sheila entered the living room, she snapped something at the girl in Italian which sent her running off in tears. “That won’t happen again,” Sheila explained taking a place in front of the bare fireplace. She was wearing an oversized sweater, denims and hiking boots on tiny feet. Powers didn’t want to draw attention so there would be no fires.