An Absence of Light

by David Lindsey

  Graver got on the floor and jotted another note on the pad holding it so Ledet could read it as he wrote.

  “Okay, okay. Uh, I’ll, shit, I’ll try and patch it up somehow. But what about Las Copas, I mean is that where they’re staging this, whatever it is? I mean, what if I come in there slinging oil? I’m not going to want to do that if all those—”

  “Wait a minute, Rick… uh, Rick, stand by.” Silence. “I’ll call you right back.”

  The line went dead and Ledet sat on the floor looking astonished.

  “Jesus. He just hung up, just like that,” Ledet said, looking up at Graver, still holding the receiver. “You think he smelled something? You think he knew something was wrong here?”

  “Put down the damn receiver,” Graver snapped.

  Ledet hung up. Neuman came into the room.

  “I don’t think he suspected anything,” he said. “It sounded to me like he was interrupted from that end. I think we’re okay.”

  “What’s Las Copas?” Graver asked.

  “It’s a little strip Kalatis had cut in the boonies,” Ledet said. “Inland from Kalatis’s beach house, across Chocolate Bay in Brazoria County. It’s a secret strip, no roads in, just air traffic. A dirt top, bayous and low-water ponds all around. The pilots use it as a rendezvous point, and sometimes to transfer goods from planes to boats. There’s a navigable bayou within seventy-five yards of it, but it’s a swampy place.”

  “It’s near Kalatis’s house?”

  “Yeah. Ten, twelve air miles. He owns a shit-load of beachfront property across the West Bay from there, on the Gulf side of the island.”

  The telephone rang again.

  “See what he says before you repeat the part about patching the oil line,” Graver said as Neuman went back into the bedroom. “We want him here.”

  Ledet nodded. “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Redden said. “Okay, look, I’m coming to pick you up. That was Wade. The whole thing’s been changed—again. New schedule. No problem about picking you up now. You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Ledet. This is better anyway. I can refuel at Bayfield and we’ll have time to get something to eat before we have to be in the air again.”

  “Bayfield? I thought you were at Gulf.”

  “No, man, change of plans. I didn’t take the Beechcraft. We got cargo. I’m in the PC, needed the extra muscle.”

  “Oh,” Ledet said, looking at Graver for vindication. “Okay. Glad we got that straight Then when you going to be there?” Ledet asked.

  “Uh, well, there’s plenty of time now so, let’s see, it’s almost three now. Why don’t you pick me up out there at… five. We’ll run over to Kemah for some crab before we start this little circus the Greek’s got planned. Gonna be a long night, Ricky. Hope you’re rested up.”

  “Okay, five o’clock,” Ledet said, and hung up. He looked at Graver for approval.

  “What’s a PC?” Graver asked.

  “It’s a Pilatus PC-12 turboprop, a Swiss aircraft. A very fine piece of equipment.”

  “What did he mean ‘extra muscle’?”

  “The PC’s a power plane. It’s new, a corporate class aircraft, but a workhorse. It’s got a range of 1700 nautical miles, airspeed of 270 knots, and can carry up to a ton in payload—people, cargo, whatever, depending on whether you put in seats or decking.”

  “Put your hands out,” Graver said, and when Ledet did Graver snapped the cuffs again and sat down in one of the rattan chairs, looking at Ledet on the floor.

  “That’s good,” Neuman said, coming back into the room.

  Graver nodded, but his eyes had shifted to the white heat outside, beyond the sunless rooms and the shady porch. No one said anything as Graver stared outside. The afternoon was hot enough now that you could smell it, the vegetation and soil and bay water heated to the point that they exuded odors all their own, odors that never occurred at any other time than on the most sweltering days of summer. It was hot even in the house now, the temperature outside outstripping the natural coolness inherent to the marriage of shadow and breeze. Now the hot breath off the bay intruded to the point of rudeness, leaving them no recourse but to sweat and wish it was later in the afternoon.

  “Look, how much longer am I supposed to stay back there?” Alice asked, standing in the doorway to the main room. She was holding onto the door frame with one hand, standing on one foot, the other foot pulled up and pressed against the inside of her knee.

  “Not much longer,” Neuman said.

  “It’s three o’clock,” she said. “Right at it, anyway.”

  “Maybe an hour,” Neuman said, not having any idea.

  “An hour? God dog!” She wheeled around in exasperation and returned to the bedroom.

  Graver looked at Neuman, nodded his head sideways toward the porch and then got up and walked back through the kitchen again carrying his handset, with Neuman following. When he got outside he dialed Arnette.

  “I’ve got some news for you,” Arnette said, and she told him what had happened at Connie’s condominium. “They just walked out, Marcus,” she said. “There really wasn’t anything else they could do.”

  “Goddamn.” The deaths made Graver furious. He didn’t feel exactly responsible for them, but he did feel connected to them somehow. They were deaths for which he felt a sense of guilt. Kalatis was at the root of two more acts of despair. The man was the angel of despair.

  “What’s happened to Kalatis’s ‘veiled’ hits?” he asked. “A bomb, now this. What’s going on here?”

  “I’m wondering if it’s him,” Arnette said.

  “Who, then? Geis?”

  “Maybe. What puzzles me is the erratic pattern of the hits. They don’t ring true. Bombing at the marina. Veiled hit on Hormann. Obvious assassination of Faeber. Either Kalatis is losing his grip… or someone with a heavier hand has stepped in.”

  “You’re sticking with your ‘government man’ theory, then?”

  “I don’t know,” Arnette admitted. “If there’s a second hitter involved… if it’s Geis… the government’s coming unhinged.”

  “Before now I thought you were wrong,” Graver said. “Now I think you’re right, but I’m hoping you’re wrong.”

  “I just don’t know why—if I’m right about a second hitter—why is he playing into Kalatis’s game? I mean, ideally Kalatis would have wanted Burtell and Sheck and Faeber dead anyway, as a part of his plan to burn his bridges. Why is someone stepping in and helping him out… so crudely?”

  “I don’t know,” Graver said. “I don’t know about any of that, but I do know I made a mistake by not pulling in Faeber. Honestly, I didn’t anticipate that I should have, I just didn’t.”

  “What about Faeber—and the woman? Do you want us to put in an anonymous call to Homicide?”

  “No,” Graver said quickly. “That’ll only bring everything down on me even faster.”

  “Jesus, baby, that’s going to be a mess for that girl to find.”

  “I can’t help that,” Graver said.

  There was a pause and then Arnette asked, “So what did you find out from your pilot then?”

  He told her about their interview with Ledet and the options he and Neuman had been discussing.

  “Well, you’re probably right there,” Arnette said. “This is going to be over by tomorrow morning. And I think you’re right in assuming Kalatis is getting ready to disappear. I can’t believe it. This has been one hell of an incredible run. Paula’s still plowing through Burtell’s account He was thorough, Marcus. Everything’s there. It’s going to cause a sensation when you finally come out with it.”

  “It’ll have to wait.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going after Kalatis. I’m going to try to turn Eddie Redden,” Graver said. “What about Murray and Remberto?”

  “What do you mean? You want to use them?”

  “I want to know if they’d help me out.”

  “Do what?”


  “I don’t know. I just want to know if they’d be interested.”

  “Are you sure… you know what you’re doing, Marcus? No offense, but—”

  “No offense taken,” Graver interrupted.” If you don’t feel good about it tell them so. I don’t know any more than I’m telling you. I just want to know if I have anyone I can rely on if it looks like there’s something I can do when the time comes. Guns blazing is hardly my style, Arnette, so don’t worry about it. On the other hand, after what they went through at Connie’s they know what kind of stuff they might expect. I just need some competent people who’ve at least been to a firing range in the last six months.”

  Arnette didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Maybe they’ll help you out,” she said finally. “But probably not for the good of mankind. They’ve worked for the government before. It doesn’t pay what it ought to for what you have to do. They may respect you, baby, but they’ve already given at the office.”

  “I can’t pay them anything,” Graver said, “but if I’m right about what we’re going to be getting into here, we’ll be picking up a lot of hot cash. Maybe millions. I could use some help keeping up with it.”

  Arnette was silent again. He knew she understood what he was saying. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll ask them.”

  “If they’re interested, I’ll have to have them here as soon as possible, but no later than four-thirty.” He gave Arnette the address. “If they’re coming, have them call me.”

  He disconnected and dialed Rayner Faeber’s number. She answered, and he asked for Last When Last came on, Graver said:

  “This is for your ears only, Victor.”

  Last paused only a second. “Yeah, okay.”

  “I need your help. There’s money in it” That was a bit of an exaggeration, Graver thought, but since Last was in the exaggeration business he ought to understand that. “If you want in you’ll have to leave right now. I’ll give you an address.”

  “I understand,” Last said. “Give it to me.”

  Graver gave the address of a service station a couple of miles from where they were. He didn’t trust the extension phones in Faeber’s house.

  “You need to be there at four o’clock,” Graver said. “Okay?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Graver hung up and looked at Neuman. “You okay with what’s going on here?”

  “So far,” Neuman said.

  It was the kind of response Graver appreciated. He could trust Neuman to tell him if it didn’t smell right to him. With the exception of Last, who Graver thought would be the wild card in the operation, he knew he could expect the same from Murray and Remberto, if they decided to come in. They had seen a hell of a lot more of this sort of thing than he had.

  “Okay, good,” Graver said. The handset rang, and he answered immediately.

  “Is this Marcus Graver?”

  “Yes, I’m Graver.”

  “This is Remberto. We’re on our way right now.”

  Disconnect.

  Graver looked at his watch. It was ten minutes after three o’clock. An hour and fifty minutes before Eddie Redden was supposed to touch down at the small strip at Bayfield.

  Chapter 72

  3:50 P.M.

  Graver sat on the back porch with Remberto and Murray. He had explained everything to them, trying to give them as much perspective as he could in a short time. All three men were sweating, all three men were drinking ice water, none of them wanting anything stronger which might cause even a momentary flicker in their judgment Since Neuman had gone to pick up Last at the service station, Graver told them about Last, too. These were two men he could trust without reservation, and inasmuch as he could influence their opinion, he wanted them to have that kind of trust in him as well. The best way to get that, aside from having Arnette’s endorsement, was to give them a clean view of the players and the circumstances, though the latter might change dramatically within the hour.

  “What about the girl in there?” Murray asked. He sat up straight in his chair without leaning back, holding his glass in thick hands, the muscles in his arms and shoulders looking like they belonged to a man twenty years his junior. He had a ballpoint pen stuck in the neck of his plain white T-shirt, and an old Colt-Browning .45 service automatic stuck in the waist of his jeans. His face was so closely shaven it was slick, and his burr haircut, even though his widow’s peak was thinning considerably, added to the air of no-nonsense professionalism that he exuded. Graver had no doubts about either the competence or the reliability of Murray.

  “I thought I’d leave Last with her while we go to pick up Redden. I haven’t thought about it beyond that. But I can’t very well let her go.”

  “Good.”

  “And this Redden, he will be armed?” Remberto asked.

  “Ledet says he will be.”

  Remberto was tall for a Latin, a little taller than Graver, rangy but with broad shoulders. A good-looking young man with thick black hair that was neatly barbered and combed, he wore slacks, a pale blue shirt, and a sport coat, all of which looked very much stressed after his hour-long sauna in Connie’s courtyard. He wore a shoulder holster under his jacket with a Sig-Sauer like Graver’s jammed into it and sat in his chair with a very relaxed and self-assured manner. But the stillness in his dark eyes belieda a concentrated tension that he had acquired during his few, but densely experienced, years in undercover work and which now occupied the core of his personality.

  Both men had kept their eyes on him since the moment they had walked out on the porch. For them there was no tendency to let their attention wander to the bay, the predictable reaction of anyone who sat on a porch with a beach view. But Remberto and Murray—Graver still didn’t know their last names—had no curiosity about the water or the ship or the Gulf. They were only interested in Graver and what Graver had to say to them about the impending events.

  “I’ve been behind a desk for a long time,” Graver said, “and you two know more about the tactical end, but I’ve got a couple of suggestions about when it might be best to take him. Tell me what you think.

  “The first good opportunity, it seems to me, is while he’s refueling. Ledet says that at Bayfield the planes refill from a small tanker truck that pulls up to the hangars. Always two servicemen in the truck. I thought two of us could take their place. If that’s not feasible maybe pose as other pilots, whatever, milling around the parking lot, the terminal office. Whatever it takes. The second opportunity would be at the restaurant where they eat I’ve done that before, and I like it It’s easy to be on either side of him and have two guns on him before he suspects anything. Have Ledet sit at a table that would accommodate an easy approach.

  “What I don’t like about the second option,” Graver added, “is that taking him at a restaurant would mean that he and Ledet would have to drive there alone in order to avoid raising any suspicion. Too great a chance for Ledet to think he could win a car chase… too much time for a lot of things to happen.”

  “No, I favor the airport too,” Murray said.

  “So do I,” Remberto added, “but, if something goes wrong, if there is shooting, we will be risking fire with that fuel.”

  “Yeah, I thought of that,” Graver said.

  “What is his personality?” Remberto asked.

  “I don’t know, but judging from his telephone conversation, he’s the one in control. Ledet seems to be going along, less concentrated. And, too, Redden’s the one that Kalatis trusts, which says a lot. Kalatis seems to insist on personal contact with his three lead pilots.”

  “And we’re just going to question the guy, is that it?” Murray asked.

  Graver explained his situation regarding the bureaucracy he would have to negotiate in order to move officially against Kalatis.

  “And while they’re trying to work out the politics of such a move, Kalatis would vanish,” he said. “And he wouldn’t be the first big target to slip out the back door while the bureaucrats are tr
ying to make up their minds. So, my intention in questioning Redden is to see if there’s some way to salvage something out of this fiasco other than a long, drawn-out investigation that will wind down eighteen months from now with nothing to show for it but a few oversentenced small-timers.”

  He looked at them. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I told Arnette they’d be moving money tonight, and they will be. But my sole concern here is Panos Kalatis. I want the money because Kalatis wants the money and my guess is wherever it is he’s not far away. To me the money is nothing more than bait. I’m not going to be looking at that; I’m going to keep my eyes on the shadows.”

  He wasn’t going to spell it out. He didn’t think he had to.

  “You’re sure the cargo’s not drugs,” Murray said.

  “Ledet says it’s cash or people or both. Not drugs. According to him, these pilots never move drugs. That’s another cell, another group.”

  “Goddamn,” Murray said. “Organization.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t think it’s unusual for Kalatis to reorganize periodically or to change plans at the last minute. He expects everyone to keep up with this, not to be put off balance by last-minute shifts in time and place. I think Redden and his two counterparts are very good operationally. And since they know just about as much as anybody about Kalatis, I put them right up at the top. I really want these guys. They would be invaluable from an intelligence point of view.”

  Both men nodded, and it seemed as though they thought his proposition a reasonable one, if somewhat unorthodox. But then Graver guessed that neither of them was too fond of orthodoxy anyway, or they wouldn’t be doing what they were doing.

  Just then Graver’s handset buzzed, and Neuman told them he was pulling up in front of the house.