by David Ellis
“Hey, it’s your life,” he says, raising a hand, sensing the objection from Allison and probably not grasping how literal his comment is. “I have something for you. It’s probably not much.”
Larry has shown an impressive ability to uncover information on this case that is probably more easily found by a journalist than by a defense lawyer or his investigator. Not necessarily cold, hard factual information that could be used at trial, but details, rumors, things that could give her an advantage.
“Still got my nose to the ground,” he says. “The prosecutors, they know Sam Dillon called you several times before his death. They’re working on the assumption that it was due to your relationship. People who are dating talk on the phone, right? But then they have this other information—someone who worked with Sam—someone is saying that Sam had mentioned something about an ‘ethical dilemma.’ Which—”
“An ‘ethical dilemma,’ they said?” Allison feels her stomach tighten.
She could sense it in his voice immediately. Something was different, wrong.
“Is something the matter, Sam?” she asked over the phone.
He didn’t respond at first, which wasn’t like him. One of the things she had liked most about him was his lack of reservation, his openness to her. Her first response, an insecure response: Sam was unhappy with their relationship. He wanted to end things. She felt a tingle down her spine, a turn in her stomach.
“Something I’m dealing with,” he finally said, then tried to change the subject to dinner. Was she in the mood for Thai? Tapas? Greek?
“Sam.” It was late January, only a few weeks into the new year. They had been together only six weeks—okay, forty-five days, she had been keeping count—but they had reached levels of intimacy she had never neared with Mat Pagone. And now he was evading her.
Sam sighed. “It’s something I’m going to have to—I guess you could say I’m having an ethical dilemma.”
Ethical dilemma. Buzzwords used by an attorney, which Allison was, or used to be. She didn’t know the rules governing a lobbyist, didn’t know how closely they resembled the rules of ethics governing a lawyer. “Something with one of your clients?” she prodded.
“I—I think it’s best we not discuss it,” he answered. “Not yet, anyway.”
Yeah,” Larry says, “an ‘ethical dilemma.’ So the cops, the prosecutors, they’re thinking that this probably related to all this Flanagan- Maxx stuff. The idea being that Sam had an ‘ethical dilemma’ because he represented Flanagan-Maxx and he was becoming aware that this company had bribed legislators. It’s like a lawyer hearing that his client committed a crime. A lawyer can’t rat out his client, right?”
“Not for a past crime,” Allison says. “Not for something like this, at least.”
“But then again,” Larry says, “Sam’s not in business as a lawyer. He’s a lobbyist. Does he have to follow the same rules? Who knows? I don’t know. But the cop I’m friendly with, he says some people think maybe Sam wasn’t calling you to whisper sweet nothings. He was calling you to see if he had to turn in his client, Flanagan-Maxx. He was calling for legal advice.”
Allison nods, crosses her legs. Larry looks at her but she will give neither confirmation nor denial. She will simply listen.
“The thinking is that Sam called you because he wanted to know what he should do,” Larry continues. “Maybe it was part legal and part, you were someone he trusted. But some people prosecuting this case think that maybe Sam confided in you about that information.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. And those same people are thinking that when you got that information, you started to feel threatened. Because Mat Pagone lobbied for Flanagan-Maxx, too. So—Sam tells you that Flanagan-Maxx did some bad things and he wants to tattle on them, and that possibly implicates your ex-husband. So . . .” Larry shrugs.
“So I killed Sam,” she finishes. “To protect a man to whom I’m no longer married.”
“But who is still your daughter’s father.”
“And they’re going to say that at trial?”
The thing about criminal trials is that, no matter how strictly the prosecution is required to disclose information and evidence, it does not have to turn over its opening statement to the defense. The prosecution does not have to explain to the defense how it intends to tie the evidence together. Sometimes the prosecution’s theory comes out in pre-trial motions, but it hasn’t in this case. So while the prosecution has told Allison’s defense team that it intends to introduce Sam’s many phone calls to Allison in the days before his death, her lawyers have assumed that they are doing this to prove a romantic relationship, because Allison has never owned up to it. What she is hearing now is that they might be using the phone calls to show that Sam was talking about turning Flanagan-Maxx—and possibly Mat Pagone—in to the feds.
The trial starts this week, and Allison doesn’t know what the prosecution is going to say.
“Some people over there think that,” Larry answers. “There’s a debate over what course of action to take. Some want to say that Sam jilted you and you were upset.”
That is what Allison and her attorneys have always thought the prosecution would say at trial. The scorned lover, seeking revenge.
“But some want to say that Sam told you he was going to take Mat down, and you did what you did to protect him. I thought you should know that.”
“Either one gives me a motive to kill,” she says flatly. “Either I was a jilted lover or I was protecting Mat.”
“Well, sure—but if they say you killed Sam to protect Mat, you have an answer.”
“I have an answer?”
“Of course you have an answer, Allison.” Larry shakes his head, takes a drink from his coffee, frames a hand. “Let’s pretend they’re right. Their premise is that Mat was bribing senators, and Sam told you about it, and was maybe going to tell the U.S. attorney as well. If that premise is true, then, sure, arguably you’d have a reason to want to kill Sam. Arguably. But again—if that premise is true, wouldn’t there be someone else who had that motive? More strongly than you?”
“That’s no answer,” she says.
“The hell it isn’t. Mat was bribing lawmakers and Sam was going to give him up. And you are the only suspect?”
Allison leans forward on the table. “Thank you for the information,” she says. “I appreciate anything you can give me.”
“But you’re not going to use—”
“Mat didn’t bribe anyone, Larry.”
“You don’t know that. You couldn’t.”
“I know he wouldn’t—”
“Then what was Sam confiding in you, Allison?”
“He didn’t confide in me about anything of that sort, Larry. He—” She looks away from him, lowers her voice. “He ended things with me. Okay? He dumped me.”
“This isn’t going to work out,” Sam said, sitting behind his desk at the capital, a hand on his forehead, looking into Allison’s eyes.
“Mat—Mat’s a friend. You know this is crazy. It always was.”
Larry is quiet. He focuses on his coffee, then looks over Allison’s shoulder at the shoppers. Oldies music is piped in over the loudspeakers.
“I know you didn’t kill Sam,” he says. “And I think I know who did.”
“Larry—”
“And I think you know, too.”
“I have to go. I’m sorry,” she adds, because she had promised him some background on her life, some items Larry Evans needed for his book. But his tell-all book is the last thing on her mind right now. She rests a hand briefly on his shoulder and leaves him.
TWO DAYS EARLIER
FRIDAY, APRIL 23
Jane McCoy walks into Special Agent-in-Charge Irving Shiels’s office. “Sir?”
Shiels is behind his desk, a number of files open before him. He gestures to her to close the door, which she does, her heartbeat escalating.
“I see you got confirmation on Doctor Lomas’s debt.”
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“Yes, sir.” But she assumes this is not the reason for her visit. Her little field trip yesterday only confirmed what they already knew about Doctor Neil Lomas.
Shiels takes a breath. “Agent, I just got a call. Muhsin al-Bakhari is making plans to go to Sudan in June. First of June, we’re hearing.”
“Yes, sir,” she says evenly, before the breath leaves her.
Muhsin al-Bakhari. They could not have hoped for anyone better.
“Haroon just booked a flight to Paris for the first of June,” he adds.
“So Haroon’s going to connect from Paris to Sudan,” she gathers.
Shiels nods. “He’ll do it when he gets there. He wouldn’t be dumb enough to book that flight now. I figure, he’ll land on June first. Spend a night in Paris. Book a flight for the third.”
Shiels knows whereof he speaks, having worked in the Middle East for years with the CIA. He knows how the Liberation Front operates, as well as anyone can know.
The gravity of what McCoy has heard settles upon her. On both of them. Unbeknownst to him, Ramadaran Ali Haroon is going to lead the United States to the Liberation Front’s operations commander, its number-two guy, Muhsin al-Bakhari. The brains behind the entire operation.
“When Haroon gets to the airport here,” says Shiels, “he’s going to be flagged. They’ll call us.”
“Sure. Of course.”
“You have to be the one who answers that call, Agent McCoy. You have to be sure he gets on that flight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Work him over. Basic questioning. Quiz him.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll be on the call that day.”
“Good.” He nods at McCoy. “That’s all, Agent.” He turns to a file on his desk, then looks up again at his subordinate, who has not moved. “Something else, McCoy?”
“Only—” McCoy clears her throat. “I was only thinking, sir, that there might be some casualties. Some innocents.”
“Lose a few to save a lot.” Shiels sighs. “I don’t have a better answer than that.”
And McCoy didn’t expect a better answer. She knows the rules. Anyone playing with fire—whatever team they’re playing on—knows the risks. Ram Haroon. Allison Pagone. Sam Dillon. Mat Pagone. Not to mention—
“Needless to say,” says Shiels, “let’s get this right.”
ONE DAY EARLIER
THURSDAY, APRIL 22
It’s a small high-rise on the West Side. Ten units, five on each side of the skinny, dilapidated building. McCoy has spent more than her share of time on this side of the city; she worked in controlled substances when she started out with the Bureau. Tough gig. She hated it, especially taking the users into custody. You typically busted the users to get to the dealers, but that didn’t mean the addicts walked. It was preferable, no doubt, to take them in and try to rehabilitate them, but she could never shake the unease of putting cuffs on people who were in the grip of addiction.
And now she’s back. Back on the grimy sidewalks, back by the small-loan shops, the convenience stores advertising phone cards and cigarettes on the metal fencing that covers their windows, the broken-down automobiles lining the curbs. She sees too many youths running around for a school day. The streets are pocked with deep potholes, the traffic signs are painted with graffiti. A car alarm is going off the next street over. She hears two women yelling at each other in a low-rise above her, through a closed window.
So many problems, it’s suffocating to even consider where to begin.
“I’m going,” McCoy says, turning her face toward the collar of her leather jacket. She doesn’t work undercover, but this is hardly a stretch for her—jeans and a baseball cap—and she wants to have the conversation personally. She’s not as out-of-place on this particular block; many parts of the West Side, contrary to popular opinion, are racially heterogeneous. The whites around these parts are heavily ethnic, first-generation Eastern Europeans, mostly, along with Koreans, Latinos, and African Americans. So she doesn’t fit in precisely, but she’s not off by much.
McCoy takes the length of the street, then turns at the crosswalk and moves to the east side of the avenue. An Asian grocer is sweeping the sidewalk outside his place. A young, very pregnant woman in a wool cap is waddling toward her.
McCoy blows a bubble with her gum. The heels are a bit uncomfortable but it fits the scene, so she works it as best she can. She gets the attention of one boy, an African American kid sitting on a stoop, playing with a deck of cards that rests on the step below him. It’s not much of an ego boost; the kid looks about thirteen.
Still, she winks at him for a response.
“Lookin’ good, my woman,” he says in a squeaky, preadolescent voice.
Good. She has just about passed him and continues on a step or two, before turning back and facing the boy. “Hey, handsome,” she says, working the gum some more. A little flirtation does wonders on a kid this age. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Oh, man,” he squeaks. He lifts the deck of cards, then proceeds to drop three of them on the step between his feet. He shows her one card—the three of clubs—and starts shuffling the three cards around with rather amazing speed and agility. “Tell me where it lands, pretty lady.”
McCoy chuckles for his benefit and takes the opportunity, while he works his trick, to inventory the boy. A flashy Starter jacket with hood, gloves sticking out of his pockets, leather high-tops, an open cigar box by his feet that holds a few dollars and some change. He’s keeping a little in the box—singles and a few quarters—to make the game look low-stakes. The rest is probably in his sock, but that’s of no concern to her.
Of concern to her is the gym bag to his immediate right.
The boy stops, shows his palms, and looks up at McCoy triumphantly. The three cards are lined up next to each other between his feet. There is no money involved here. He’s just showing off.
She leans into him. “What’s your name, kid?”
The boy smiles at her, showing thick gums, white teeth. “Jackson,” he says. “Tell me which card’s the three of clubs, pretty lady.”
McCoy leans in, still closer. “I don’t gamble, Jackson,” she says quietly, evenly, no longer smiling. “I’m an FBI agent. You’re not in any trouble,” she adds, raising her hand preemptively, as she sees the boy begin to adjust his position, angling himself to the right. “But you will be if you reach for that bag.”
McCoy gestures over her shoulder. “See that guy turning the corner right now? Two o’clock.”
The boy looks over, undoubtedly seeing Harrick emerging from around the corner.
“He’s my partner. If he sees you try to signal Jimmy in any way, we’ll lock you up.”
The reference to Jimmy, she figures, is as meaningful to the boy as her threats. She is telling him that she already knows what is going on upstairs.
“Put your hands on your face, Jackson,” McCoy says. “Do it now.”
The boy complies eventually, slapping a hand on each cheek. He doesn’t seem particularly worried. Closer to sulking.
McCoy takes his gym bag and opens it. She doesn’t find a weapon and didn’t expect to. She lifts a hand-held radio out of his bag and puts it in her jacket pocket. “What’s he paying you, out of curiosity?”
“Twenty bucks a pop.”
“What’s a pop? Half a day?”
“Seven to one, lady. Damn.” The boy shakes his head. He has just lost one of his day jobs. The other one, which apparently starts at one, involves the card hustle, but not here. Jackson probably hits the train station, the bus terminal, somewhere downtown where the white folks don’t so much mind being hustled by such a cute little guy.
“I’m taking the radio with me, Jackson. But all the same, keep those hands on those cute cheeks of yours. Don’t make a move now, okay? My partner has a short fuse.”
“I ain’t movin’, lady,” he answers in his disappointed voice.
McCoy pats Jackson’s shoulder and moves up the stairs. Sh
e uses a key that was copied from an upstairs neighbor, last week. Harrick followed the woman to the store, showed her his credentials, and persuaded her to let him make a copy.
McCoy speaks into her collar. “Am I clean?”
“Clean,” Harrick’s voice crackles back in her earpiece. What he means is that Jimmy, upstairs, has not looked out his window, down at McCoy talking to the boy, nor has Jackson made any attempt to signal his boss from the stoop.
Once inside, McCoy removes her heels, takes one of the two flights of stairs and stops on the landing. She tosses her leather jacket, leaving a pajama top—nothing frilly, just a light-blue top. She takes off her cap and musses her hair.
“I’m going black,” she says, removing the earpiece.
She takes the next flight of stairs and walks up to the door. There is loud music coming from the apartment, as they had been told. But it’s not as loud as she had been led to believe, and she realizes she should have considered the source, an eighty-one-year-old woman.
Still, it’s her excuse, so she’ll use it.
She bangs on the door and shouts. “Hey!” She gets no response so she tries again, slamming the door hard, getting a good feel for its sturdiness. It’s thin, cheap wood, which is no surprise, but there’s at least a chain lock, also predictable. She hopes like hell she will not have to break down a closed door.
“You wanna turn that music down?” she shouts.
The voice comes from inside the apartment. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem is you, jerk-off!”
She hears him moving inside, toward the door, possibly approaching the peephole.
She takes a step back before he gets too close.
