An Absence of Light

by David Lindsey

  Redden blanched and his facial muscles went slack. “Blew up?”

  “You know Colin Faeber?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was hit this afternoon.”

  “‘Hit? Killed?”

  “Gilbert Hormann?”

  Redden nodded, already seeing it coming.

  “He was hit last night.”

  Redden swallowed. His eyes looked like they would never blink again. He swallowed again.

  “And three of my intelligence officers who were working on the case,” Graver added without explanation.

  Redden’s stare dropped to the tarmac outside the doors of the hangar. “Sheck was goddamned right… the Greek’s cutting himself loose. He’s going to run.”

  “And where do you think his pilots fall into this scheme of things, Eddie? You think he’s just going to let you go—with all you know about him?”

  “Son… of… a… bitch.” Redden seemed almost catatonic.

  “This might have been your last day of flying anyway,” Graver said.

  Redden said nothing. He just stared at the tarmac that was dancing in the heat waves beyond his plane.

  Chapter 74

  “Tonight,” Graver said, bringing Redden back to the conversation at hand, “if you’re going to be picking up the clients here, taking them on a two-hour ‘diversionary’ and then going into Las Copas, they’ll be boarding pontoon planes there to hop over Chocolate Bay, right?”

  Redden nodded. His rate and volume of perspiration seemed to have accelerated.

  “How does that work? Does the pontoon plane pull up in the bayou there? There’s a bayou nearby, isn’t there?”

  Redden nodded. “About seventy-five yards from the strip.”

  Neuman had rolled a car tire over and was sitting on the edge of it behind Redden. Murray and Remberto had pulled over a sawhorse and were sharing opposite ends of it. All of them sweating, all of them riveted to the conversation as they listened to Graver methodically extract every logistical detail.

  “Anything different about the routine at this point?”

  Redden nodded again, as if something was just now dawning on him, as if another piece of the Kalatis puzzle was falling into place.

  “Yeah.” He swallowed once more. “Yeah, normally the cash and the client are loaded onto the ‘tooner and jumped over Chocolate Bay. When we get to Kalatis’s pier, the client goes up to the house for his meet with Kalatis, and the cash is off-loaded onto a cruiser.”

  ‘Then what?”

  “Cruiser takes the cash out to the Gulf rendezvous instead of the ‘tooner. The ‘tooner and pilot have to wait to jump the client back over the bay.”

  “You said ‘when we get to Kalatis’s pier.’ You fly the pontoon plane too? There weren’t other pilots for the pontoon plane?”

  “No, we fly it. There’s only one ‘tooner. First pilot drops down on Las Copas, everything’s loaded onto ‘tooner, jump over Chocolate, jump back over Chocolate when client is through, pick up the regular plane and leave the ‘tooner in the bayou for the next pilot and client. He does the same thing. The copilot on the last plane takes the ‘tooner away. It’s kept in a small Gulf-side hangar in Kemah.”

  “I assume someone stays with whatever plane is paused at Las Copas?”

  “Oh, yeah, three of Kalatis’s guards go to Las Copas by boat ahead of time. They take an electric generator and string lights along the strip. It’s quite a job. The lights just come on momentarily during the landing, and then they’re shut down again. The guards—they call them security—stay during the whole operation, just that one night, and help off-load the cash from one plane to the other and then ‘secure’ the plane that’s not being used.”

  “Three guards, you said. Are there always three?”

  “That’s right. That’s where Kalatis is different from your average, run-of-the-mill smuggler or bad guy. There’ll be six armed guards, not fifteen or twenty. Just six. Three at Las Copas, three at his own dock. They’re low-key kind of guys. In fact, every weapon they’ll be carrying will be fitted with a silencer. The Uzi’s, the Mac-10s, whatever they’re carrying. Silencers. It’s only common sense when you think about it. All those other cowboys like the sound of the blasting. Shit, with silencers you can do a lotta death before anybody even knows you’re there. So they don’t mind using them. I don’t mean they’re trigger-happy; I’ve never seen that But they’re not afraid of using them either.”

  Redden thought about that for a second and then he looked at Graver again. “Look, can I have another cigarette?”

  Again Neuman took a cigarette from Ledet. When Redden had lit it, Graver went on.

  “Okay, now, you said this time was going to be different.”

  “Yeah. This afternoon we had a meeting with Kalatis. The normal routine was suspended. Each one of us is going to have a slightly different schedule. Wade’s first up. No diversionary—straight to Las Copas. Same routine at Las Copas, transfer client and cash to the ‘tooner. But when he gets to Kalatis’s, he drops off the money and the client and flies back to Las Copas without the client.”

  “Did Kalatis explain that?”

  “He said the client’s going into Galveston by cruiser, and then back to Houston by car.”

  “But what about the hoax of making them believe they were in Mexico?”

  “Yeah, I asked about that. Kalatis said he’d hired me to fly planes, not to run his business.” Redden grinned, the way a man grinned about a death threat instead of allowing himself to panic. “Anyway, so Maricio’s next Same thing, straight to Las Copas—”

  “How long is that flight?” Graver interrupted.

  “Half an hour. Maricio’s ‘tooner trip is the same as Wade’s, drop off the cash and the client and back to Las Copas. I’m doing anchor. Same routine as the others.”

  A small plane that had landed on an opposite runway came wheezing by the hangar. It was the first one that had come close since they had been there, and they all turned and looked at it. Graver turned back to Redden. The pilot was staring at the nose gear of his plane. Graver guessed he was reworking what he had just told them about the night’s schedule. He imagined that in light of what he had learned from Graver about the other deaths, Redden was having second thoughts about the implications of the new schedule.

  “Let’s get back to the guards,” Graver said. “When the client comes to the airport and gets on the plane with his money, does he have guards who go along to guarantee the delivery?”

  “No, huh-uh. That’s not part of the deal. Kalatis hates high profile, hates all those guys strutting around carrying automatic shit. Deal is, when you bring your money on board Kalatis’s planes Kalatis is responsible from there on. If you don’t trust him by this time, don’t give him your money.”

  “But what about traveling to the airport?”

  “Kalatis allows the client to have two guards travel to the airport from the hotel. One of Kalatis’s men is with them. The plane is inside the hangar. We open the door, the car drives in. All the loading is done in here out of sight. The client’s heavies have to leave before we’ll take off.”

  “Then there is one guard who makes the actual trip with the money.”

  “Right.”

  “Then Kalatis actually will have four guards at Las Copas.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’d be right Three on the ground, one in the plane. But that one guard always stays with ‘his’ load. He goes on to Kalatis’s pier. That poor bastard’s life is tied to each box of money. If he loses one, he loses the other—sooner or later.”

  “You don’t think there will be changes in the guards’ routines too, like there were in yours?”

  “I can’t say about that I just know it wasn’t mentioned when we were going over the plans.”

  “What about the amount of time you’ve got to make the pontoon flight from Las Copas to Kalatis’s beach house and back to Las Copas? Is that enough time?”

  Shit, barely. It’ll be damn clos
e. The jump across Chocolate and West Bay’s not the problem. It’s the time on Las Copas going in, off-loading the client and cash, going the seventy-live yards to the ‘tooner and on-loading the client and cash. They’re giving us twenty minutes on that, then there’s the fifteen-minute jump to Kalatis’s dock, ten off-loading at the dock, fifteen-minute jump back to Las Copas, ten to dock the ‘tooner, get back to our planes, and get outta there. Then they’ve given us a ten-minute cushion from the time one plane leaves to go home and the other lands on Las Copas.”

  “And that’s not enough.”

  Redden dragged on the cigarette and then shook his head as he pulled down the corners of his mouth. “Nope, not enough. Doesn’t leave time for screw-ups… There’s always screw-ups, especially when you’re running out of a little ol’ dirt strip like Las Copas. You’ve got to be careful with radio contact in there. It’s crazy. And those damned generator lights. It’s gonna be touchy.”

  Graver nodded and studied Redden a moment.

  “Okay,” he said. “What about a contingency plan? What happens if something goes wrong somewhere along the line?”

  “Yeah, always a backup plan. Actually there are two.” He used the toe of his boot to tap an ash off the cigarette. “If something goes wrong before the money’s delivered, we call a coded number and tell Kalatis what happened. He makes a decision. If he’s going to change airports, he’s got to coordinate the money delivery, and he’s got to make sure the guard who’s going to be baby-sitting that load knows the score. Then he calls us back and tells us the alternate pickup site.

  “If something happens after the pickup, there’s a prearranged destination. It’s prearranged because after we’re airborne everybody’s got to be thinking the same thing. Personnel will be spread thin because the guys at the original drop site—Las Copas—will be out of pocket. Kalatis’s troops will be spread thin. That’s another reason the inflight alternate destination will be the same for all three pilots. Kalatis wouldn’t have enough people on the ground to spread them out to cover three alternate delivery sites.”

  Graver looked at him. “You mean everyone meets at one airport.”

  “That’s right. But the timing stays the same.”

  “Which airport?”

  Redden raised his hand dangling the handcuffs and pointed an index finger down to the concrete in front of him.

  “I’m sittin’ on it,” he said.

  Graver stared at Redden. “Have you ever had to use a contingency plan?”

  “Once.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Clockwork.” He shrugged. “Everybody’s a professional. They can handle contingencies.”

  Graver nodded. The tin walls of the hangar crackled in the heat.

  “Did you tell Kalatis you had your doubts about the schedule of the timing at Las Copas?”

  Redden nodded stoically. “Yep.”

  “What did he say?”

  Redden’s expression was grim. He took a last pull on the cigarette and mashed it out next to the other butt on the concrete.

  “He doubled our fee,” he said. “Hell, we were already getting paid like damn CEOs, now we’re getting paid like two damn CEOs.” He looked around at Remberto and then back at Graver.” Just goes to show you, don’t it You pay a guy enough money, and he’ll risk hell and high water to do the job. The bigger the money gets, the more he tells himself he can beat the odds… even if the odds get bigger too. All he can think about is coming out on the other end—smelling like brimstone and steam—with all that tax-free cash.”

  Chapter 75

  7:50 P.M.

  The five of them sat on the veranda facing the bay. Pizza boxes and hamburger carry-out sacks were scattered around on the small rattan tables along with cans of soft drinks. Graver leaned back in his chair and looked through the kitchen into the main room of the oversized bungalow where Redden and Ledet were sitting in the middle of the floor, their ankles and wrists cuffed together, looking like hostages in the fading light Alice was handcuffed too, but she was in the bedroom watching television. She had been told she was a material witness, and it was necessary to hold her for a while longer. Not being too bright, Alice accepted this without demanding to see a lawyer or screaming about her rights. And it helped that she had the television. It turned out she liked television a lot.

  When they first arrived at the beach house and secured the three people inside, everyone had gone to the veranda and handed out the pizza and hamburgers. Graver had explained to Victor Last, who had remained with Alice, what had happened, and Last had listened without asking too many questions. Graver could tell that Last had sensed that questions were not the proper thing at this point in the proceedings, though it was not clear to Last just exactly what the proceedings were. Which was fine.

  Then they had eaten their food, which was quickly growing cold, and talked about how Redden and Ledet’s stories had jibed and what they thought about Kalatis’s security, what they thought about his elaborate planning, what size plane the others might fly, and what the airspeed of the planes might be. In short, they talked about everything except the most important thing on their minds—what they were going to do—a matter that was totally absorbing Graver’s thoughts as he ate in silence, staring out to the dying light in the bay, while the others talked.

  After finishing his hamburger, Graver sat back in his chair and opened his notebook. He started jotting down an outline of the schedule of flights, when each pilot left Bayfield, landed at Las Copas, off-loaded and on-loaded cash and clients to the pontoon plane, departed Las Co-pas and arrived at Kalatis’s pier, off-loaded cash and clients, and returned to Las Copas. At each juncture he noted the timing as related by Redden, keeping in mind that it was a schedule to which Redden doubted they could adhere. The plan was tight and efficient But something about it was terribly wrong.

  “Okay,” he said finally, leaning forward in his chair and holding his notes in his hands in front of him, his forearms resting on his knees. Everyone stopped talking, wadded last bits of paper, put away boxes and sacks from in front of them.

  Graver began reading the flight plans, stopping once in a while to listen to someone’s different recollection of what Redden had said was going to happen at a particular point In this way everyone reviewed a plan that was confirmed by consensus, no points remaining so unclear that anyone thought it was necessary to go back to Redden for clarification. When Graver was through he sat back in his chair again.

  “Any observations?”

  There was a momentary pause, and then Murray spoke up.

  “Yeah, one.” He was careful to keep his voice down. He wiped his mouth one last time with a paper napkin, wadded the napkin, and tossed it into a paper sack between his feet “I personally think that seventy-five percent of this plan is total bullshit.”

  Graver almost smiled with relief. “So do I,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “First of all,” Murray said, passing a thick hand over his short haircut, “Kalatis has got this thing on a schedule that looks too tight. We know how Redden feels about this.” He pulled his chair a couple of feet closer to Graver so he wouldn’t have to worry so much about being overheard by the two men inside the bungalow.

  “Second, Kalatis has decided to give up his gimmick about living somewhere in Mexico. Now this is a game he’s gone to a lot of trouble to keep up for months, maybe a year or more. And now, at the last minute before bringing in the last of the big money, he’s going to let all these people know where he really lives?” Murray shook his head. “No way. I don’t buy that. Even if he is skipping out, I don’t buy that.

  “Third, he’s changing—at the last minute—a schedule that has worked like clockwork for all this time. Why, right before his biggest haul, would he risk running an all-new schedule which is so complex that it is almost guaranteed to break down somewhere?

  “Fourth, if I were in Kalatis’s shoes, I’d be simplifying my last deal, just to make sure I didn’t screw it up
, instead of making it more complex. Or, I’d just leave it alone.

  “Fifth, judging from Redden’s account, Las Copas is as remote as hell.” Murray was leaning forward toward Graver, and he turned and looked at Remberto. “What I think,” he said, “is that the first stop at Las Copas is the last stop… for everybody.”

  Graver looked at Remberto who gave a very small nod of agreement, and then at Neuman who was stunned, and then at Last who was looking like he wanted to break out in a sweat.

  “That’s what I think too,” Graver said.

  “They’re going to kill all of them at Las Copas?” Neuman was incredulous. “The clients… and the pilots… and the copilots?”

  Graver nodded. “Yeah. I think the reason Kalatis wasn’t concerned about how the tight schedule was going to work was because it didn’t matter. The clients, the pilots, and the moneys—all stop for the last time at Las Co-pas.”

  “Goddamn…” Neuman was shaken.

  “Yeah, and I think that was dawning on Redden too,” Murray said. “That guy’s no dimwit.”

  “What about the planes? They’d have four planes there,” Neuman said.

  “Probably only three,” Graver said. “The pontoon plane might not even be needed. And they’ll just have other pilots to take them away. But Redden, Maricio, Wade and their copilots know too much about this particular operation. The new pilots, they’ll just be hired to pick up some planes at an old dirt strip. That’s all they’ll know. And they’re not going to ask a lot of questions. The money’s too good, like Redden said.”

  “And when it is all over,” Remberto added, looking at Neuman, “there will be only three witnesses: the security guards who will do all the shooting. You can bet they will be paying those boys a percentage of the money brought in on the three planes. You have to pay people like that very well. You never let your tigers get too hungry.”

  “The question is, what’s the best way to break this up,” Graver said. “There’re only five of us.” He hesitated. “I see two chances. One: We leave now, immediately, for Las Copas. Ambush the guards when they come in early to string the lights, and then intercept each of the planes as it comes in. We’ll have to get the ‘all clear’ signaling arrangements from one of the guards.