The Extraditionist (A Benn Bluestone Thriller Book 1)

by Todd Merer

  “Benno’s got a feeling he’s in the dark about things that might bite him in the ass. Am I right?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Also, Benno smells money and is wanting to partake of some.”

  I didn’t reply.

  Traum grinned. “As always, I will find answers to Benno’s questions. But first, I want to ask him a question.”

  I nodded.

  “You actually thought you could trust Foto?”

  I started to reply, then shut my mouth.

  CHAPTER 38

  I called Kandi and told her I wanted to set up a bail application for Joaquin Bolivar. She wasn’t pleased.

  “You go for bail, there’s, like, no way I’ll ever proffer your client.”

  Bull. The quintessential Kandi. In your face like a tough guy, threatening this and that. But I knew better. Bolivar’s case was triable. Maybe, almost. But enough for her to worry she’d lose to me at trial. So when she won the bail argument, she’d gloat until I called, requesting a proffer. Which would earn me a lecture, followed by a reluctant agreement to proffer, so long as my client and I understood it would end at his first lie.

  “Shall I arrange the bail hearing, or do you want to?”

  “Your application, your call, Mr. Bluestone.”

  “Right.” I dialed up Judge Trieant’s clerk, conferenced Kandi in, and scheduled a bail application for the following day. Wouldn’t be fun. I was trying to conjure up something fun to do next—Gym? Shop? Lunch?—when I got an e-mail that at first seemed odd, but upon reflection was promising.

  It was a video promoting a group called the Shkillas who were going to perform their Shcash dance in a schoolyard on East 95th Street; same yard I used to play stickball in. The video was homemade: lighting too dark, sound screechy. But what came through loud and clear was a ghetto dance and sound I hadn’t heard before. Not that I’d heard many, but this stuff was good. Six or eight hooded bad boys Shcash dancing: giant steps, arms akimbo, waving big, automatic handguns. That part was a bad idea, no matter whether the guns were real or fake. All illegal handguns in the Apple meant a minimum three-year bit. And, real or not, waving a gun attracted bullets from both cops and robbers. The aggressive, dangerous parts aside, the Shkilla stuff was better than just good. It was great, at least to this old white man. A little refinement, and a commercial future loomed. I made a mental note to talk to a guy I knew, a mafioso who had a grubby finger in the music business.

  The music stopped, and a camera light spotted a dancer’s face that I’d recognize anywhere: sweat-sheened blue-black skin, big white teeth, see-all buggy eyes. I grinned. It was my old young pal, Billy Shkilla. He rapped, “I do the Shcash dance. Then I kill and cash ya, bitch. Just like I did the other one.”

  The screen went dark. So did I. I’m all for art, but not if it meant trouble. No question that the video already had been watched by a street-crime task force, guys who daily do battle with stacks of unsolved homicides. They’d be at the schoolyard, curious whether Billy Shkilla was an artist or actual murderer. Or both. I thought about calling Billy for a heart-to-heart, then decided it was a waste of time.

  The next day when I entered Trieant’s courtroom, Kandi was already at the government table, along with the case agent, Chaz Scally. Again, I sensed distance between them. The other agent, Nelson Cano, was slumped on a spectator bench. In jeans and high-tops, he looked more like a defendant than a fed.

  The marshals escorted Bolivar in, and again I became aware of Kandi’s reaction: like a little kid eyeballing a cone of cotton candy. To my annoyance, Bolivar smiled at her.

  Judge Trieant twirled his waxed mustache and nodded.

  “Kandice Kauffman for the government. Good morning, Your Honor.”

  “Benn Bluestone for Joaquin Bolivar.”

  “Proceed, Ms. Kauffman.”

  I was mildly surprised. I’d made the bail application, and the usual protocol was that I had the first opportunity to speak. But I let it pass. Trieant’s intentional disregard—make that disrespect—allowed me to hear Kandi’s argument first and adjust mine accordingly.

  “The government calls Special Agent Charles Scally.”

  Kandi began with the usual qualifying questions as to Scally’s law-enforcement background and familiarity with the case.

  “Agent Scally, during the course of your investigation, did you learn anything relevant to these proceedings?”

  “I did,” Scally replied.

  “Tell us what you learned.”

  “Mr. Bolivar is not a United States citizen.”

  “How do you know that, Agent?”

  Scally produced a burgundy-colored passport. I’d seen enough similar passports to recognize what country issued it. “His passport is Colombian.”

  “No more questions,” Kandi said.

  Trieant scowled at me. “I assume you have no questions?”

  I stood. “I do, Your Honor.”

  Trieant sighed. “Proceed.”

  “Agent, did you ascertain whether Mr. Bolivar has dual citizenship?”

  “I have no information or evidence to support that.”

  “I have a question, Mr. Bluestone,” Trieant said. “Do you have evidence that your client has dual citizenship, or are you fishing? If so, you’re wasting my time.”

  “If Your Honor will adjourn the hearing, I believe I can obtain evidence.”

  Bolivar tugged my sleeve. His whispered, “Let it go. Set up a proffer.”

  A proffer? Now? I was astounded, but no way I’d let Kandi see my reaction. “Application withdrawn, Judge. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” Trieant said, and left the bench.

  I spoke to Kandi outside the courtroom. “My guy wants to proffer.”

  Kandi smiled. “You have a short memory. I told you that if he tried for bail, I wouldn’t proffer him.”

  I knew she would proffer Bolivar but wanted to rub my face in it first. “Yes, you told me, but I didn’t tell him. Don’t punish him for my poor decision.”

  Kandi made a show of exasperation. “The mighty Bluestone admits a mistake. Finally. Maybe, if I have time next week, I might proffer your client. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. In the meantime? Don’t make any more poor decisions.”

  Scally nudged Cano and spoke loud enough for me to hear. “Told you he’d flip.”

  That night I drove to Brooklyn. Billy’s performance was over, but the schoolyard was still crowded. The vibes were sullen as the cops ringed the yard. Oh well. Billy would learn. Or not.

  CHAPTER 39

  The next day I got an e-mail from Kandi confirming an afternoon proffer for the following week. My desk suddenly clear, I decided it was time for some R and R. I flew to Miami and spent a couple of days working out, eating healthy, sleeping late. Then came an evening I decided to prowl for a woman. I needn’t have bothered.

  One found me.

  When the doorman brought up my Bentley, a woman was seated in the passenger seat. Jilly. Her hair was swept above her tanned face. She wore oversize shades and a men’s white tee knotted at the waist and a pair of cutoff Levis and scuffed white Keds. For a moment, I was too stunned to speak and then I figured best not to; clearly, I was there to listen. So I just got behind the wheel, and off we went.

  “Mister Cool,” she said. “No what, why, whatever. Not even a ‘How are you?’”

  “How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks for asking. I have a question.”

  “Ask.”

  “Natty wants to know if you can arrange for a paralegal to visit Mr. Bolivar. He says he’ll pay for the paralegal. He says all you have to do is write the jail a letter saying a person is your paralegal, and they’ll be able to visit Mr. Bolivar whenever they want.”

  Incredible as it sounded, this was true. The fed jails are crawling with unqualified paralegals coddling well-heeled inmates while scouting new work for the lawyer who’d sponsored them. Every so often, one of these snakes gets ca
ught in an unethical or illegal bind, and both they and their sponsoring lawyer are barred from the jail. One common violation was making a relative or friend of the defendant a paralegal, so they could visit as often as they liked.

  “Does Natty have anyone in particular in mind?”

  She hesitated a beat too long. “I don’t know.”

  “Give your business associate a message.”

  “My business associate?”

  “Tell him I won’t do it.”

  “He’ll ask me why.”

  “Tell him to ask me.”

  I’d been tooling along side streets in a nice part of the Gables. It was a perfect Florida evening. Soft breeze. Cicadas. Tang of salt air. In the rosy light, Jilly’s hazel eyes were lime green, her lips cherry. There was a small shadow where her chin was dimpled. I hadn’t noticed the dimple before. Maybe because she was smiling widely, and I’d never seen her smile that way before.

  “Natty won’t like that,” she said.

  “How’d you find me here?”

  “Natty did. Through some kind of, what . . . title search?”

  “Why’d he send you?”

  “I guess he thought you’d be more willing to do it for me than for him.”

  “He’s right. But the answer’s still no. Long trip for nothing.”

  “Actually, I was coming here, anyway. And I thought it would be nice seeing you. The highway just ahead? Get on it, please.”

  “You just got here? You tan awful quickly.”

  “I was in France. Skiing the Alps.”

  I flashed on Kursk’s chalet in Courchevel.

  Jilly smiled. “The sun’s murder on your skin, but who wants to live forever, right? Filly liked me tan. That Hollywood glow, she called it. She said I had what it took to be a star. To be what she always wanted for herself. She almost made it, too.”

  Jilly’s eyes were bright with sincerity. Too bright. Maybe there was a chemical in her bloodstream. But then again, when it comes to talking about mothers, some people can turn on tears like a faucet.

  “Filly was in a big film once, about ancient Egypt. She played the pharaoh’s dancing girl in a scene with the leading man. Actually, they had a real-life relationship, sort of. Anyway, her speaking part, it wound up on the cutting-room floor, and afterward, well . . .”

  There was a microsecond flash of green over the elevated highway, and when I turned, the sun was gone below the horizon. As if unaware of the abrupt sunset, Jilly continued speaking, her voice dreamy now.

  “The leading man was this big English star named Hawkins. He told Filly she was prettier than the woman who played the Egyptian princess. Filly always remembered that. Said it was her dream someday to be buried in a pyramid, like in the film.”

  Funny, I thought. Just the other day I’d been reminiscing about a replicated Egyptian tomb, and now Jilly had mentioned Egyptian pyramids. Weird coincidence. As I so often think, true coincidences are an endangered species; here and now on Planet Earth, most things are preordained. But this was neither coincidence nor preordained.

  This was karma.

  I pulled to the curb. “Natty can wait,” I said. “Come with me.”

  “Stop at my place so I can change. It’s not far.”

  The sky was dark now, as if curtained.

  End of act one, I thought.

  CHAPTER 40

  There are plenty of over-the-top pads in Miami, but Jilly’s was out of this world. It was on a private island, an enormous glass cube on grounds sprinkled with the kind of art favored by billionaire collectors: so-called installations, the kind of phony nonsense that makes me want to scream that the emperor’s naked.

  Jilly picked up on my thoughts. “I know. My decorator calls it a ‘garden of art.’ Me, I like gardens with plain old trees and flowers. Maybe one of these days, I’ll stop listening to other people and start doing what I want.”

  “Why not start today?”

  “All right,” she said, and kissed my mouth.

  Exactly what I wanted, but I was stunned.

  “Wait here.” She went inside the house.

  Leaving me in a garden of art marveling at the vagaries of the human condition. Jilly had morphed from an impossible dream to one about to come true. Crazy. But no crazier than my presence amid a pile of junk that was the pinnacle of creativity in the modern world; long gone and forgotten was the creativity of thousands of years ago, when civilizations erected majestic pyramids as monuments to . . .

  Thinking of which, I searched my device for the actor she’d mentioned named Hawkins. Turned out he was the Jack Hawkins who’d commanded a Brit frigate in another of my favorite old war films, The Cruel Sea. Land of the Pharaohs was the in-living-Technicolor story of a pharaoh who wanted to take it all with him, and so he devised a scheme that would impregnably lock his remains and riches in a pyramid forever. Filly must have been a beauty if Hawkins preferred her over the king’s lady, who was played by Joan Collins. Like mother, like daughter—

  “Benn,” Jilly called.

  I looked up and saw her at a window. She crooked a finger, then disappeared.

  I found her in a bedroom larger than my apartment. The only furniture was an enormous bed veiled by gauzy linen billowing in a breeze coming through the window. She sat cross-legged on the bed, naked except for a gold chain from which a heavy gold ankh hung between her perfect breasts.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Benn?”

  “I’m wondering why this is happening.”

  “I’m attracted to you. Isn’t that enough?”

  “It would be . . . if it were true.”

  All at once, she looked about to cry. “I’m not much good at this, Benn. I don’t know much about sex. I never did. The only man who understood me was my husband.”

  “Sholty Chennault the Third.”

  “You know about Sholty?”

  I shrugged. “Do I?”

  She sat up and pulled a length of linen from a bedpost, knotted it around her like a sarong, and sat on the side of the bed. She clenched the ankh in her fist as she spoke.

  “Sholty was the only man I ever loved. The day he died was the worst day of my life.” She wiped her eyes and sniffled, her stare growing distant. “I should have been with him, but I was shopping in town. For such a god-awful day, the weather was so beautiful. From town, you could look across the water and see our house.”

  She wiped her eyes again, then looked squarely at me.

  “That day was the last time I felt happy. Afterward, his family piled on me, real bad. His mom and sister didn’t like me from the start. They said I was responsible—a murderer. You can imagine what that did to me. A friend of mine hooked me up with Raphael Borg. Rafe came west and kicked the hell out of the Chennault lawyers. I know you don’t like Rafe, but if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have anything. I don’t even know how much I’m worth, but Rafe says I’m a billionaire. But the money doesn’t mean anything. All money can buy is toys. Like this.”

  She picked up a remote, and a wall became a 3-D screen, on it a TV broadcast of an awards show.

  “Rafe surrounds me with toys. When I first saw the shit—pardon my French, the art—he set outside the house, I thought he was playing a joke on me. But Rafe said they were an investment, that they appreciate in value.”

  “Forget Rafe. Tell me about the man you were with in Panama.”

  “What man?”

  “Evgeny Kursk.”

  She winced as if I’d struck her.

  I sat next to her and cupped her chin. “We’re friends, remember? Friends need to be honest with one another. Be honest with me.”

  She nodded. “I haven’t even seen him since Panama.”

  I thought about Courchevel but said nothing.

  “I pretended to be nice to Evgeny as a favor to Natty.”

  “Because Natty’s your business associate, right?”

  “Don’t mock me, Benn. Sometimes things are hard to explain. Rafe got me involved in busin
ess with Natty. Maybe too involved. That’s why I have to go along with things. But the truth is, I’m trying to break things off with Natty. Rafe knows he made a mistake: he wants me to end it, too.”

  Because Rafe’s scared to death of the consequences. “Exactly what was this business?”

  She didn’t reply. She was looking at the wall screen, where a woman in a glitzy dress holding a statuette was making a speech.

  “I knew her in acting school,” Jilly said, nodding toward the screen. “Don’t know why I bothered going, but looks like she made it to the top. Momma was wrong about me being an actress. Can you picture me, an actress?”

  I nodded. “Actually, I can.”

  I meant it. She had the necessary ingredients. Not just the physical attributes, but the me-first attitude of ultranarcissists. I should know because I’m one of them. A closet artiste. Back when I was middling along, I’d even written a novel: Drug Lawyer. Got rejected up the kazoo.

  “I wasn’t much at acting,” Jilly said. “I was too scared to let it out in front of people. Closest I ever got to it was the kind of film where the maids wear black-lace undies. Took a long time before I felt clean again after that.”

  I wanted to get out of there. Jilly needed taking care of, but not by me. That was Rafe’s job. She no longer was the unattainable object of my desire. I’d wanted to know how she was connected to Natty and Kursk, but clearly, I wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of her. She was either cleverer than I was or truly didn’t know anything. Didn’t matter. I’d find the answers elsewhere.

  “Benn? Where’re you going? Don’t leave . . .”

  I hustled downstairs. By the front door, Jilly’s bag sat atop a side table. It was open. Folded documents protruded. The corner of one bore a familiar logo: BOP—Bureau of Prisons. I took it from the bag. It was as an application for a sponsored paralegal to visit federal inmates. The blanks were filled in.

  I was named as the sponsoring attorney.

  The paralegal was Jillian Sholty.