Dog Tags

by David Rosenfelt

  I have no idea if any of this stuff with Milo is working, since Juliet has instructed me to wait a good while before trying to get him to find the envelope. But I don’t really mind, since I’d rather hang out with dogs than people anyway.

  Milo and Tara are better company than Pete and Vince, and I don’t have to buy the beer.

  When the session ends, I quickly turn on the Mets game. While I’ve been gone the Braves have taken a six-run lead.

  Can’t trust those Mets.

  M WAS MORE THAN A LITTLE TIRED OF HIS ROAD TRIP. He had arrived in Albuquerque three days ago, only to find that Tyler Lawson had gone to Las Vegas that morning. It was not a difficult thing to discover; Lawson had always been a compulsive talker, and he told at least five people, who related it to M when he arrived.

  M had said he was an old army buddy of Tyler, but any excuse would have done. Tyler’s new friends in Albuquerque were not particularly suspicious, and they were quite willing to share with M what little they knew about Tyler.

  M recognized the possibility that Tyler had heard about the deaths of his partners and run off in a panic, planting false information about going to Vegas to throw off his pursuers. M doubted this was the case, though. Tyler was so dumb that M thought he should be watered twice a day, and it was unlikely he had read a newspaper in the past decade.

  If Tyler said he was going to Vegas, he was likely going to Vegas.

  But Vegas is a big place, far bigger than it had been fourteen years earlier, the last time M had been there. Coincidentally, he had followed someone that time as well, but had managed to murder him and get out of town within twelve hours. Tyler would prove a lot tougher to find.

  M was anxious to get it over with. Landon was very unhappy, and rightfully so, with the botched attempt to kidnap that dog. The fact that Childress was killed in the process was a plus; being dead made him substantially less likely to talk.

  M checked into Caesars Palace, choosing it mainly because it was one of the few really nice hotels that had been there the last time he was in Vegas. In fact, he had gunned down his target in the Caesars parking lot, so the place held a sentimental attachment for him.

  Once he checked in, M called room service for dinner and set about calling the hundreds of hotels in Vegas where Tyler could conceivably be staying. Since Tyler was newly wealthy, M started with the high-class hotels and worked his way down.

  After calling twenty hotels and dealing with what he considered to be twenty idiots on the switchboards, he had not found the hotel that Tyler was registered at. There was always the chance that he was there under a different name, but M doubted it. If he had told the truth to his friends about going to Vegas, then he wouldn’t try to hide once he got there. He was there under his own name, or he wasn’t there.

  M decided to go to sleep and continue the process in the morning. He never considered going to the casino; gambling had never interested him. Besides, with the money he was going to make, winning or losing at gambling would have no effect on him whatsoever, and therefore would provide no excitement.

  It took another fifteen calls to learn that Tyler was staying at Circus Circus. It figured; the man was an idiot, child-like in many respects, and the name alone would have appealed to him.

  M went to the hotel and walked around the casino, hoping to see him. He had the advantage of knowing what Tyler looked like, without Tyler knowing him. M was somewhat concerned about the ubiquitous security cameras, but if the operation went according to plan, there would be no reason for law enforcement ever to view the tapes.

  M was there for eight hours, walking around and occasionally playing fifteen minutes of blackjack or roulette. He never gambled more than fifteen dollars at a time, careful not to call attention to himself. Gambling serious money in a place like this would be like shining a klieg light on himself.

  Tyler finally showed up and sat down at a twenty-five-dollar blackjack table. M waited ten minutes, and then took the chair next to him. There was only one player at the table other than the two men. M handed the dealer a fake ID, so that the pit bosses could track his gambling, in case he was looking for comped meals later.

  Tyler was the talkative type at the table, telling M and the other player whether they should draw or stand, and yelling loudly in support when any of them won. He also ordered and drank three scotch and waters in the first fifteen minutes that M was there, prompting M to reflect on the fact that it might not be necessary to kill Tyler, that perhaps he should just wait a few minutes for his liver to explode.

  When the table was in the middle of a hot streak, the dealer having busted three hands in a row, M stood up. “Well, that’s enough for me.” He pushed his chips to the dealer, to change them for larger ones.

  “Where you goin’?” asked Tyler. “We’re hot.”

  “Believe me, I got someplace better to go.”

  Tyler’s interest was clearly piqued. “Yeah? Where?”

  M hesitated, as if thinking whether he should say something. “It ain’t for you.”

  “What do you mean? Try me.”

  M pretended to consider this again, and then finally leaned in to Tyler and whispered, “Meet me in front of the hotel in ten minutes. Near valet parking.”

  “Ten minutes? I’m winnin’ here.”

  M smiled. “Then stay and keep winning.” He got up and walked toward the front of the hotel.

  Ten minutes later, just as M’s rented Mercedes was being brought up by the valet, Tyler appeared. M pretended that he didn’t see him, and took the keys from the attendant, as if preparing to drive off.

  “Hey, where you goin’?” Tyler asked, then stepped back and assessed the car. “Nice wheels.”

  “To a party,” M said.

  “I’m always up for a party,” Tyler said.

  M thought for a moment, as if weighing an idea, and then smiled. “Get in.”

  They drove on US 15 South, toward Los Angeles. M said they were going to a place near Primm, which was a small group of three casino hotels designed to attract drivers from LA before and after they went to Vegas. He told a story about the cocktail waitresses throwing a party once a month, admission one thousand dollars, making it sound like a sexual Disneyland.

  The story did not have to be particularly well formed or believable, since Tyler was too drunk and stupid to judge its credibility. “A thousand? No problem, man.”

  They exited about five miles before Primm, pulling off on a small road that seemed to lead to nowhere but desert. By then Tyler had fallen asleep, and M would have preferred to shoot him then. Unfortunately, that would have gotten blood all over the rental car, so M had to force him out of the car before putting a bullet in his head.

  By the time he buried him, it was too late to get a flight out of town, so that had to wait until the next morning.

  At which point the road trip would be over, which would allow him to get back and deal with the dog, and the lawyer.

  THE INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE’S MOTTO IS “THE FUTURE IS HAPPENING ALL AROUND US.” Which may be true, but the directors chose a building that stopped representing the future around 1908. It’s old and run-down, with an elevator that has to make rest stops on its way up to the sixth-floor offices.

  My only-rich-companies-have-good-looking-receptionists theory takes a hit when the young woman sitting at the lobby desk is an absolute knockout. She brings me back to Eliot Conyers’s office, and on the way there I only see three other employees. This does not appear to be a thriving institute.

  Conyers has the look of a guy who works for a living, complete with loosened tie and rolled-up sleeves. He has an earnestness about him, the type who really cares and thinks he can make a difference. But if he’s been working on energy independence, he doesn’t have that much to show for it. If George Washington had the same independence-achieving record, we’d all be eating fish-and-chips.

  He welcomes me with a smile and an offer of a Diet Pepsi, which I gratefully accept.


  “Thanks for seeing me,” I say.

  “I was afraid that if I didn’t, Vince would be pissed at me. Life is too short for that.”

  I laugh. “Believe me, I know what you mean.”

  “So what can I do for you?”

  “I’m working on a case that—”

  He interrupts. “I know. The Erskine murder.”

  “You’re familiar with it?” I ask.

  He nods. “Only because it’s tied to the al-Hakim killing. That was a rather major event in my world.”

  “How so?”

  “When we invaded Iraq, the media talked about how people were looting stores, museums, even ammunition depots from the previous regime. Unfortunately, that was kid stuff compared with the way the country’s oil was being stolen. The corruption in the oil ministry was mind-boggling, and it continued for years. On some level it’s continuing now.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  He smiles. “Many billions. Many, many billions.”

  “And we couldn’t stop it?”

  “That depends on who you mean by ‘we.’ If you mean the American government, we could have stopped a lot of it if we put our mind to it. But if you remember, our troops were otherwise engaged. And we farmed out a great deal of what we did to private contractors, many of whom saw a chance to become unbelievably wealthy in a very short time.”

  “Where does al-Hakim fit in?” I ask.

  “As the military situation got better, we started putting pressure on the Iraqi government to get the corrupt oil system under control. When the pressure became too great to resist, Yasir al-Hakim was appointed to head up the oil ministry. He was the man we insisted on.”

  “Because he was honest.”

  He shrugs. “That was his reputation going in, but of course you never know until someone is put into the position. He didn’t get a chance to deliver on his promise, which was to go through the industry with a scrub brush.”

  “Which made him a target.”

  “I figured that if he was for real, his life expectancy would be about a week. He lasted six, but three of them were in a coma after the explosion.”

  “And his death has had a major impact?”

  Conyers nods vigorously. “In a couple of ways. In the long term, it’s had a chilling effect on other potential reformers; martyrdom in that part of the world is limited mostly to religion, not business or government.”

  “And in the short term?”

  “It sent the price of oil way up. The market doesn’t like instability and uncertainty, so the explosion was a major event. Since then the price has gone down considerably, mostly because of economic conditions.”

  “So who killed al-Hakim?” I ask.

  “I can’t give you names, but you can be sure it was the people whose profit al-Hakim was preparing to eliminate.” He shakes his head sadly. “They took a sixteen-year-old girl, probably convinced her she was on a mission from God, and sent her in to blow herself up.”

  “But she couldn’t have gotten there on her own, which is where Erskine came in.”

  He nods. “Do I have proof of that? No. But that would be my first, second, and third guesses. And his murder makes it even more likely.”

  “Any idea why they waited until the foreign businessmen were there for that conference?

  He shrugs. “Al-Hakim knew he was a target, so he was almost never out in public. But for this event, he was probably assured by the Americans that we had his back. How’d that work out?”

  We talk a little more, but Conyers has no more information to offer. I thank him, and as I’m leaving I ask, “So are we going to get energy independence?”

  He smiles. “Not this week.”

  PATIENCE WAS NEVER SOMETHING WILLIE MILLER EVER REALLY HAD PATIENCE FOR. It made sense, seeing as he had wasted seven years sitting in a prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He certainly wouldn’t want to waste more of his life waiting or sitting around. But the truth was that Willie was an impatient person long before he ever went to prison, and that trait simply continued afterward.

  Yet Willie’s lack of patience was never quite as pronounced as in the days after he killed Ray Childress. He had told both Andy and Laurie that he wanted to be involved in the investigation, that he was anxious to help in any way he could.

  They had both assured him that he would get his wish, but he felt they were just putting him off, and in the days since they hadn’t come to him with anything.

  He didn’t want to keep bothering them, but he had this problem: Somebody had paid Ray Childress to hold a gun on Sondra, and that somebody was still walking around free. That was simply intolerable.

  It was time to talk to Joseph Russo.

  Joseph Russo had been convicted on a weapons charge just before Willie’s retrial, and their stay in prison had overlapped for almost three months. One day Russo was attacked by three other inmates in the prison yard, men who either didn’t know who Russo was or who were trying to make a name for themselves.

  Russo was a top lieutenant in the Vincent Petrone crime family, which considered New Jersey its personal playground. But that didn’t help him that day in the prison yard, alone and facing three men with makeshift knives.

  What helped him was Willie Miller. Russo and Willie weren’t friends, but they had conversed a few times and developed a prison form of respect. What Willie did not respect was what was about to happen to Russo. Three against one, especially when the three had weapons, was not the kind of competition that Willie would look favorably on. And it was certainly not the kind of thing he would look away from.

  The whole thing took about forty seconds, and an hour after that Willie and Russo were back in their cells, and the three men were in the hospital. No action was subsequently taken against either Willie or Russo, mainly because the entire incident was captured by the prison surveillance cameras.

  Russo was appropriately grateful, and vowed that if Willie ever needed anything, all he had to do was ask.

  Now was the time to ask.

  The problem was that Willie had no real idea how to do that. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Russo in years, though he had heard Russo had only spent eight months in prison. It wasn’t like he had his address or phone number, but it was going to take much more than that little glitch to stop him.

  It was pretty well known that the Petrone family used the Riverside area of Paterson as their base of operations. It was a collection of unassuming streets and houses, rather old-fashioned, and completely free of crime. Kids played out front without parental supervision, secure in the knowledge that no one in their right mind would dare harm anyone in that neighborhood.

  Willie went down there at six PM, a time when he figured a lot of people would be out and about. He parked in front of a diner and started walking. To everybody he saw he said the same thing: “Hey, my name is Willie Miller, and I’m looking for Joseph Russo. You know him?”

  Every single person said they did not know Russo, so Willie smiled and said, “If you meet him, please tell him I’ll be at the diner, waiting to talk to him.” Most people in Willie’s situation would have been nervous, but Willie had been born with a defective anxiety gene.

  After half an hour of spreading the word, Willie went back to the diner, ordered a burger and french fries, and waited.

  He didn’t have to wait very long. Two men, one large and the other larger, came in and the diner immediately felt crowded. They walked over to Willie’s table, and the smaller of the two said, “Let’s go.”

  Willie stuffed the last few french fries into his mouth and followed them. They walked down the street, and the smaller man dropped behind Willie, so that Willie was in the middle. Willie noticed kids in the street and on the porches staring at them, and he waved as if he were in a parade.

  The unlikely threesome went three blocks, ending at a house that looked no more expensive or impressive than any of the others. The larger man went up the steps and opened the door without knocking,
then signaled for Willie and the other man to follow.

  Willie heard the sound of a television, which seemed to come from upstairs. He was led into a den, where Joseph Russo was shooting pool with another man. Willie was struck by how much weight Russo had gained since getting off prison food. Back then he was maybe 160 pounds, which looked appropriate for his five-foot-ten frame. Looking at him now, Willie figured him for more than two hundred.

  Russo looked up, saw Willie, and broke into a broad grin. “My man,” he said, then put down the cue stick and walked over, wrapping Willie in a bear hug. “How ya doin’?”

  “Still cool,” said Willie. “Stayin’ cool.”

  Willie suddenly realized that they were alone; his two escorts and the other pool player had seemed to vanish in thin air. He wanted to get to the reason he was there right away, but Russo wanted to drink beer and reminisce about the old days, as if they had been fraternity brothers for four years rather than casually acquainted inmates for three months.

  Russo only briefly referred to the attack that day in the prison yard, but did mention that the three men regretted what they did “until the day they died,” which was only two months later.

  “So,” Russo finally said, “what can I do for you?”

  “I killed a guy last week,” Willie said, but Russo showed no reaction at all. “His name was Ray Childress.”

  “That was you?” Russo asked, and then laughed. “Childress was messing with you? I always knew he was an asshole. Man, I’ve been telling my people for years about how you could handle yourself.”

  Willie was pleased that Russo knew Childress. “He held a gun on my wife and tried to steal my dog.”

  “Your dog?”

  “Yeah. I need to know why he did that, and who sent him, so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “You think I know?” Russo asked.

  Willie shrugged. “I figured you could find out. Especially if Petrone is involved.”

  Russo reacted quickly to the mention of his boss. “This had nothing to do with Mr. Petrone,” he said, then softened and laughed. “He don’t even like dogs.”