Rivers of Gold

by Adam Dunn

  Sitting in McKeutchen’s reinforced chair, his fingers steepled together, Devius Rune did not appear angry. His shoulders were relaxed and his craggy features calm, almost slack. Santiago didn’t know how he could be so at ease with this.

  And he didn’t care. He couldn’t rid his mind of the sight of the figure on the motorbike coming apart in a cloud of fluid, the big BMW lurching sideways and pinning his left leg beneath, dislocating the hip joint with an audible pop.

  More had loaded the Benelli with FRAG-12 rounds, each a 19-millimeter HE projectile that armed itself three meters from the shotgun’s muzzle, designed to penetrate armor half an inch thick. Santiago’s shot had severed the shooter’s arm just below the right elbow, penetrating his Kevlar vest and detonating just beneath the right floating rib. More’s shot had gone through the shooter’s helmet and pierced the skull half an inch from the foramen magnum. A large amount of energy had been transferred in the process, resulting in a significant portion of the front of the biker’s helmet—along with his head—being sprayed outward in a trajectory that ended in a neatly stacked pile of wooden pallets, which had supported several hundred pounds of starfruit only hours before.

  Squarely in the middle of this was the kid, who wound up wearing a substantial amount of his would-be assassin all over his head, face, and upper body.

  In a bizarre twist, the paramedics treating the kid for shock found a lollipop stuck in his hair.

  A crash DNA test ordered by Totentantz, cross-referenced with Interpol database records, would later identify one Ahmed Kadyrov, aka “Babyface,” a Chechen enforcer for a multinational Eastern European crime syndicate rumored to be headed by a Ukrainian national, one Miroslav Tkachenko, aka “the Slav,” among numerous other aliases. The Slav was a high-value target for law-enforcement and intelligence agencies throughout the Russian Federation, several Gulf League states, the E.U., the U.K., and the U.S. A U.S. State Department report claimed the Slav’s fearsome reputation extended from a prison on Siberia’s Pacific coast all the way to Paris; there were kill-on-sight bounties on him in a dozen countries.

  “Which is where I come in,” explained Devius Rune. “The Slav is one of my projects. He’s a good example of how commerce becomes weaponized, how the economy is part of the modern battlespace. National security isn’t just about bombs and terrorists anymore, detective, it’s about money, how the bad gets mixed in with the good at the point where legal and illegal economies meet.

  “Increasingly,” he continued, “this city has become that point. Things are getting out of hand in New York. Some of us in Washington thought something had to be done.”

  He stood up abruptly, the way More had done in Esperanza’s NTU, and Santiago found that although he wanted to draw on him, he did not have the energy. “You’ve been extremely helpful, Detective Santiago. More speaks well of you. Consider that high praise indeed. Usually he doesn’t say much at all. Captain McKeutchen says you have misgivings about legalities.” He gave Santiago an index card, on which was typed DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE DIRECTIVE 5525.5. “Look it up. Makes for interesting reading.”

  Santiago was too tired for this. The rush was over. The kid was safe and his would-be killer was a puddle in a playground. The killer’s backup team (intercepted by CAB officers two blocks away) had promptly thrown themselves on the ground shouting, “Nie strzelać!” They were still waiting on IDs for them.

  Watching Devius Rune chatting idly, almost amicably with McKeutchen, Santiago noticed that he had lines around his eyes and mouth similar to More’s, as though he’d spent long periods in cold dry weather squinting into the sun. Santiago wondered if Devius Rune had ever set foot in Afghanistan. Or heard the concussion from bombs he’d helped guide in. Or felt the bite of RPG shrapnel. He decided that he’d never know.

  And he did not give a shit.

  Rising slowly, almost painfully, he wandered over to the glass behind which More sat in an impenetrable cloud. He’d made his sniper blind in a mound of discarded pallets and garbage, the detritus of dozens of Chinatown markets and restaurants. Hence the rebreather apparatus he’d donned in front of Santiago back at his place in Flushing. Nobody would have looked for him nestled beneath all the cabbage stems and dried fish and pork fat baking in the June heat; no one would think a human being could stand it.

  And no human being could.

  Except one.

  Ever More.

  The fuck.

  He’d brought along his ballistic cases and returned the M4 and Benelli to their original states before the techs rolled up. Santiago didn’t know what he’d done with them, but how easy it would be, he thought, to make a small insertion in his report. Just a deviation from the script. To go back to the way things were. To pretend none of this sick shit had ever happened.

  Not a chance.

  “You keep quiet about this, detective,” Devius Rune said to him from behind McKeutchen’s desk, “you’ll get your Second Grade, and that transfer to OCID, too.”

  “Where do you usually sit?” Santiago had asked him. McKeutchen, standing in the corner, made a face that suggested acute constipation.

  But Devius Rune had smiled, a terrible sight. “Most of the time, detective, anywhere I damn please.”

  The next two days dragged by. Santiago had to type up his report, and surreptitiously hand it to McKeutchen to fudge. This was easier than he would have thought, given that the unit was busy with evidence from the restaurant, the brothel, and the office. Two CAB teams were taken up processing the Polish gunnies they’d busted the night of the shooting under the bridge. The Narc Sharks had been interviewed twice (anonymously for print) and were packing their gear for the move to OCID. Santiago felt no envy. In fact, he felt nothing at all. The shooting had left him numb and listless. More’s weapons had been turned over without incident. Nightclub Guy was in the wind. The fund manager was due to be arraigned in two weeks’ time and had been denied bail. The cabbies had delivered testimony in obscura and been released, even Arun. When Santiago had objected, McKeutchen had said, “It’s all for the best, kid. We’ve got more than we know what to do with. This is going to take months, maybe years to unravel. And don’t be jealous of Liesl and Turse. They’re gonna have company. I’m gonna have to find myself someone as pigheaded as you to break in all over again.” McKeutchen beamed, the effect of which was somewhat mitigated by a mouthful of half-chewed peanut M&Ms. Santiago looked away.

  McKeutchen had made arrangements at St. Vincent’s Hospital. The kid had his own room. It was better than most; nurses checked him at least once every twenty-four hours. McKeutchen was looking into rat-holing some department money—God knows from where—for a therapist. He was over there every other day. The first day, Santiago went with him. When he walked into the room, the kid started screaming and yanking out his tubes. Shooed out by McKeutchen, Santiago vowed never to let More near the kid again.

  While standing outside Renny’s hospital room, hating himself, he had been approached by a stout balding doctor with a quiet, self-assured demeanor and a nametag that read LOPEZ. Santiago disliked him on sight. Through his salt-and-pepper beard the doctor asked Santiago if he was a friend of the family. Santiago had silently shown his badge.

  “Ah,” uttered the good Dr. Lopez. Santiago felt like shooting him, too. The doctor looked at his clipboard. “Reynolds Taylor, age twenty-five, hair white-blond, eyes pale green. One hundred eighteen pounds at time of admission.” Santiago looked through the window in the door. McKeutchen stood over the kid, who stared sightlessly, and an ancient woman, who seemed equally vacant. “Shock, borderline malnutrition, liver function off the chart. You may want to tell him to knock off the partying if he feels like seeing twenty-six.” Dr. Lopez spun on his heel and walked off at a brisk pace.

  Shock. It had been More’s idea to use the kid as bait. He didn’t care about the consequences, he just wanted whichever assholes from Varna’s crew showed up for the kid’s scalp. Not a thought for the kid, or the case, or the department
. Just because More wanted it.

  Because Nightclub Guy was More’s mission.

  Or, more likely, Nightclub Guy’s boss. The Slav.

  Fucking More.

  Not that it would be a problem. Once Devius Rune had returned to Washington, More simply vanished. The Flushing site was abandoned. When Santiago called ESU to ask about More, he was told there was no such name in the department. More’s name disappeared from the CAB duty roster and his name was no longer spoken at roll call.

  Within two days of the shooting under the bridge, Santiago felt fossilized.

  His eyes kept coming back to rest on the desk drawer once assigned to More, which still had the lock More had put on it. Everyone except Santiago had apparently forgotten about it. On the fifth day, while McKeutchen was at the hospital with the kid and the ghostly, wizened old woman who didn’t seem quite all there, Santiago went through the lock and pulled the .45 and the inside-the-waistband holster out of the drawer.

  The holster was all wrong. Santiago had the torso for a shoulder rig, and felt better with one. The .45 was another matter. The Glock 39 was a short-frame model, which felt spindly and small in Santiago’s hands. The kick was something else entirely, bucking noticeably up and to the right, but still manageable, if you had hands like Santiago’s. The barrel length was wrong, though, once he sent the target more than twenty yards down range.

  The range master came out as he was clipping up his third target and asked if he was married to the Glock.

  “What else you got?” Santiago asked.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon firing .45s of all shapes and sizes. The venerable M1911 was great for range, but it proved bulky in a shoulder rig and slow on the draw. Glocks were too light. Compact colts and S&Ws appealed to him, even with the .45 ACP round’s added kick, but only one of the pistols he fired felt right in his hand.

  Going on five P.M. that day, he burned some of his savings on an online order for a Springfield XD .45 compact with an accessory rail for a light/laser attachment and a Galco shoulder rig with provision for extra clips.

  Back in his apartment, showered and shaved, Santiago strapped on More’s Glock and sent a single text message.

  Then he went home.

  Back to Inwood. Back to the wooden-slat rumble of the Number 1 train above the seedy bars on Nagle Avenue. Back to the cell phone and barber shops along West 207th Street. Past his father’s shop and home. Luis had made a haul. There was fresh striper and porgy and cod, and shrimp and calamari and mussels, and fresh cilantro and onions and tomatoes. His siblings were there, and their significant others, and Santiago was the only single one at the table. But it wasn’t so bad. He was used to it.

  The only awkward moment came when his asshole brother Rafa had started running his mouth about the big shootout under the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown, and how it was probably a drug thing. Probably junkies. Probably on that new paco shit. Probably.

  Santiago wasn’t aware he had been staring until Esperanza gently touched his arm. Victor scowled. Santiago’s mother said he looked just like one of the fish Luis had delivered. Santiago lowered his eyes and said nothing.

  After dinner, while others overindulged with flan and rum, Santiago, strong coffee in hand, braved the noxious cigar smoke the males in his family were generating by the windows to check his messages.

  The text he’d sent earlier read: TONIGHT. MY PLACE. MIDNIGHT. SAY YES. The reply was one word: YES.

  As he made his good-byes, his sister surreptitiously asked if he’d talked to McKeutchen about More. Victor was less encumbered: “You still working with the crazy fuck?”

  “I don’t know,” Santiago had replied, and for the first time in days, he felt like he was being completely honest. It helped.

  He’d gotten back to Long Island City just in time to light the candles, set out a portion of his mother’s homemade crab cakes, and make sure the bathroom was in order before the buzzer rang.

  When he opened the door, Yersinia was leaning on the jamb wearing a belted trenchcoat like Columbo. She held out a foil-wrapped bottle. “For wrapping up the big case.” She declined his offer to take her coat.

  He went to work on the bottle. Porfirio Plata, the good stuff. “How do you take it?” he asked over his shoulder.

  No response. Yersinia was a pest.

  He turned. Yersinia was standing in the living room with her arms crossed, looking at the four huge photos of the Mall in Central Park that Santiago had liberated from the kid’s apartment. She had shed her coat and wore only a silver belly chain.

  “Well?” she asked over her shoulder. “Aren’t you going to bring me my drink?”

  It’s fun to be right, Santiago thought as he cracked the seal.

  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

  (FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY!)

  MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2013

  Century Club Raid Uncovers Crime Ring

  True Apothecary Fund head linked to chain of criminal enterprises, including swank Century Club, brothel, and the new notorious “speaks”

  BY RONNEY RADIANT

  NEW YORK—A joint Federal-NYPD task force conducted a sweeping series of raids last week on the Century Club, long touted as a lone success in today’s downtrodden restaurant market, as well as a series of other private ventures around New York City, including a brothel, a copy shop, and a taxi garage, not to mention one of the highest-profile investment funds under the ever-expanding aegis of Urbank.

  The raids have ensnared a bizarre mix of suspects, including the head of Urbank’s True Apothecary Fund, Mark Shewkesbury; several Polish nationals believed to be enforcers for a multinational crime ring; at least one unnamed employee of the posh Century Club in Chelsea; a string of suspects believed to be part of an Upper West Side brothel; and an unknown number of cabdrivers, at least two of whom are connected with the Sunshine Taxi Corporation in Queens, according to unnamed sources. The cabdrivers are suspected of serving a network of illegal club-type parties, modeled after the illegal supper clubs that have sprung up around the city following an unprecedented wave of restaurant failures. Unlike the supper clubs, however, the nightclubs, or “speaks” as they are colloquially known, have nurtured a flourishing trade in illegal bar operations, drugs, and prostitution.

  The violence that has simmered beneath the surface of this underground trade has now exploded with lethal force. Three cabdrivers have been murdered within the past month, for reasons yet unknown. Following the huge cabdriver protest last week, which immobilized city traffic for hours, came the bloody shootout beneath the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown on June 21. Eyewitnesses put a taxicab at the scene, which was later identified as belonging to the NYPD’s new Citywide Anticrime Bureau (CAB), which uses taxicabs as undercover police cars.

  In a near-simultaneous (though possibly unrelated) incident, other officers from the Citywide Anticrime Bureau raided the offices of Roundup magazine after its editor in chief, Marcus Chalk, had been reported missing for several days, and after a surprise government audit turned up large deficits listed as “off balance sheet expenses.”

  A spokesman for Roundup’s parent company, Malignant Media Inc., could not be reached for comment. Calls to the office of Malignant Media’s board chairman, pesticide tycoon Hugo Mugo, were not returned.

  While the raids on the Century Club and the brothel (known commercially as Bacchanal Industries), and Shewkesbury’s arrest, stem from a long-standing Treasury/FBI investigation, it is unknown what triggered the raids on Roundup, the Chelsea copy shop (the name of which is being withheld pending further investigation), or the Sunshine Taxi Corporation in Queens. Both the FBI and the Treasury Department declined to comment.

  The Polish nationals arrested in Chinatown following the shootout beneath the bridge, whose identities have yet to be released, also turn up in the books of the copy shop. It is unclear whether these men have any connection to the brothel, the True Apothecary Fund, or Roundup magazine. There was no information available on the status of the
Polish gunmen. Calls to the Polish embassy were not returned.

  Sixteen people and an unknown amount of narcotics and other contraband were seized in the raid on Bacchanal Industries, which operated out of a brownstone on West Eighty-third Street near Central Park. No further information is available.

  Nor is there any further information on the shooting under the bridge, which one onlooker described as “a m———g war zone.” The onlooker, who asked not to be identified, described the scene as “f———g disgusting” and “a s———d of blood.”

  The NYPD said a statement on the status of the cases was pending. City Hall spokeswoman Tsetse Fly said the mayor was “deeply troubled” by the raids and was withholding comment until “all the facts are in.”

  On the taxi front, Baijanti Divya, executive director for the Taxicab Workers Association, the de facto cabdrivers’ union, stated: “I hope these sad events focus public attention on the plight of New York City cabdrivers, three of whom have been brutally murdered within the past month. Surely the TLC and City Hall don’t want more protests like the one we staged last week, which stopped

  all taxi traffic for six hours, to happen again. I call upon Mayor Baumgarten and the TLC to adopt stricter driver-security measures and better NYPD protection for New York City cabdrivers.”

  Calls to the TLC were not returned.

  Detective (Second Grade) Sixto Fortunato Santiago put down his phone and shifted gingerly in his chair so as not to aggravate his bruised ribs. He did so favoring his right leg, keeping pressure off his sprained left ankle. There was a dark knot on his forehead between his eyes, as though he’d been struck with a hammer. He carefully put his mug to his mouth, keeping the hot coffee well clear of the stitches inside his lower lip. Yersinia had ravaged him. He felt lucky to be alive.

  “Santiago, line two,” Liesl called out morosely. He and Turse were inconsolable. Their big roll-up had hit the wall when NYPD divers had fished out a corpse from the riverbed off Roosevelt Island. The corpse had a wallet and ID belonging to one William Rochester, a Brit. His wrists and ankles had been bound with piano wire, cruciform-style, to a sewage dredge, which had been floated out to the middle of the river and sunk in sixty feet of water in the center of the city’s wave-turbine field.