Cleopatra Gold

by William Caunitz

  “Manny Rodriguez. We brought him up from the cay a few weeks ago.”

  “Kill him,” she said quietly, and walked away.

  A plumbing truck with lengths of different-size pipe strapped to its side drove down Beekman Street. The plumber in the passenger seat was talking to the driver just loudly enough for the transmitter concealed in the sun visor to pick up his words. “Mobile Four to home base. Lucifer has unloaded. Do you want him taken out? K.”

  Inside the Special Operations communications room, Seaver felt his heartbeat quicken. He looked over at Romano, who was sitting on a chair staring at the toes of his shoes and smoking another bummed cigarette.

  “What do we tell him?” Seaver asked the boss.

  Joey-the-G-Man tapped the ash off his cigarette, letting it fall on the floor, and ordered firmly, “Tell ’em to maintain their distance and observe and report.”

  A taxi with a rooftop billboard showing a beautiful woman in a swimsuit advertising a suntan lotion drew up at the curb in front of Alejandro. Getting into the cab, he told the driver to take him to 1049 Broadway. Seaver turned on the meter and edged the taxi out into the Fifth Avenue traffic and around Washington Square. He asked, “How are you doing?”

  “What happened with the drop?” Alejandro asked anxiously.

  “It’s in a warehouse on Beekman Street, behind the Fulton Fish Market.”

  Alejandro gave a satisfied nod of his head as he saw Seaver watching him in the rearview mirror. “And the duffel bags?”

  “They hauled them away in the van,” Seaver said, turning east. “We tracked them back to your loft.”

  Alejandro nodded thoughtfully. “Now I know why Pizzaro insisted that I give him a key. Now that he knows it works, Che-Che is not going to waste any time exploiting Parapoint.”

  Seaver swerved to avoid a pedestrian jaywalking out from between parked cars. “I wish there was some way we could maintain control over those damn bags.”

  “They’ll kill me real quick if they ever discover those transmitters. The longer we wait, the more we risk.”

  Seaver nodded in unhappy agreement and changed the subject. “Any ideas on Cleopatra?”

  “Not really, just some vague feelings.”

  “Who’s this Judith you want a make on?”

  “Her piss would etch glass. Other than that, apart from what I gave you earlier, I know nothing.”

  “Where’s she in the pecking order?” Seaver asked.

  “I’ve seen her throw her weight around like she was pretty far up.”

  “And Che-Che?”

  “I just don’t know, Andy. I don’t see a swinging-dick Latino like Che-Che taking orders from any woman. But the funny thing is, I’ve never once seen him with a woman.”

  “Just because you haven’t seen one doesn’t mean there isn’t one. This guy keeps most of his life closed off, even from those closest to him. So maybe Judith fits in there.”

  “Maybe. Something else has been bothering me. I don’t see Che-Che with the smarts to put this network together.” He paused, thinking. “How long will it take you to get a line on Judith?”

  “I’ve got my best people working on it. When I know, you’ll know.”

  Alejandro pressed harder. “How will you get the word to me?”

  “Read your junk mail,” Seaver said, again looking at the undercover’s reflection in the rearview mirror, noticing the signs of aging in his face, new lines at the corners of his eyes. Alejandro had requested this meeting, yet he had not revealed anything important to justify it, which he would have done had he come up with anything solid. Seaver suspected that he needed a “personal,” a contact with someone who cared for him, knew him. Seaver served as Alejandro’s only contact with the real world, where people led lives that made some sense. “Do you need any equipment to repack the parachutes?” Seaver finally asked.

  “I got everything I need in the loft. In a little while I’m going to need some more adhesive diodes.”

  “I’ll get them to you.” Then he suddenly asked, “Do you remember the lawyer, Carlsen?”

  “I remember him,” Alejandro said with a grim edge.

  “Carlsen and Barrios were whacked on the same day. We think a woman took both of them out.”

  “Why?”

  “The crime scene boys discovered female pubic hairs on the sofa near Barrios’s nude body.” Seaver shuddered involuntarily as he reported, “Both of his eyes had been sliced open. And the lawyer had lipstick on his lips.”

  Alejandro shook his head and observed glumly, “Female shooters have become a growth industry in the dope business.”

  Seaver stopped for the red light on Twenty-third Street. Staring out the windshield, he asked, “Why do you stay at it? And please don’t tell me because of your father. There has to be more to it.”

  “I’m a believer, Andy. My dad fought traficantes and other scum all his life. They killed him in the end. My mother’s people have been exploited for centuries. These scumbags are using them, poisoning them.”

  “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” Seaver asked just as the light changed and he raced the taxi ahead of the rest of the herd.

  His tone drenched in sarcasm, Alejandro continued, “‘Say no to drugs’—that was this country’s big public relations answer to the war. If anyone wants to know about the war on drugs, tell ’im to look at Colombia, where the traficantes have murdered half the judiciary. They’ve killed hundreds of policemen and journalists, thousands of civilians. Those people know what the drug war is really about.”

  Seaver waited until Alejandro’s passion was spent and said quietly, “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m okay, Andy,” Alejandro reassured him. “But I’m more convinced than ever—the only way we’re going to win this thing is by covert operations against the networks; destroy their infrastructure, take out the leaders.”

  “We’re putting a lot of them inside for life.”

  Alejandro gestured impatiently. “Bullshit. The criminal justice system is paroling Nicky Barnes after he was sentenced to life without parole. How many people did good ol’ Nicky murder when he was operating?”

  “A lot.” Seaver sighed. “But Nicky gave up a lot of people in order to win that parole.”

  “He gave up Harlem brothers who in the normal course of events wouldn’t have lived to see thirty-five anyway. Name one traficante or pinky ring he gave up. They’re the movers and shakers in this business.”

  Seaver’s jaw muscles began to pulse. “What’s your next move?”

  “I told Judith that I thought of another way for Che-Che to wash his money. Suddenly he telephoned me, said he wanted to see me. He’s sending a car for me at seven tonight.”

  Seaver turned around and looked at Alejandro in surprise, demanding, “Do you know enough about money laundering to pull it off?”

  “They teach us well at the Hacienda.”

  “What do you have in mind for Che-Che?”

  “Using Parapoint to launder their money.”

  “We’re helping this network import heroin, now you want to help them wash their money. There are some who would say we’re facilitating drug traffic.”

  “Us? ’Om’on, Andy. I’m a singer and you’re a file clerk.”

  “Keep your hands at your sides and your hips in neutral, and sing ‘Stardust,’” Scott Hart said.

  Hart, Alejandro, and Josh Budofsky were in a nineteenth-floor rehearsal studio that Budofsky had rented. Alejandro was alone on the stage, standing in front of a pleated maroon curtain that had faded into a creamy gray color. An anxious Budofsky was sitting on the aisle in the last row alongside Hart, a thin black man in his middle sixties, with sparse gray hair and big brown eyes.

  Without accompaniment of music, Alejandro began to sing.

  Keeping his eyes focused above the heads of his two-person audience, Alejandro sang for the stranger who was to help change his musical personality. He was nervous. After all the crap I’ve lived through t
hese past years, I get nervous singing for this guy, he thought.

  Hart rested his chin on the back of a seat, his eyes and ears evaluating the man on the stage. When Alejandro finished the song, Hart told him to sing “What Is This Thing Called Love?”

  Alejandro began to sing, and without realizing it, he started to move the tempo to a Latin beat.

  “No. No,” Hart said. “Sing it the way Porter wrote it. And I want to hear perfect phrasing—every word clearly enunciated.”

  When Alejandro finished singing that song, Hart told him to sing anything he liked.

  Sucking in a deep breath and staring off at the verdant hills of Ireland that his grandmother had told him so many stories about, Alejandro pulled out all the stops, singing a beautiful, but, compared with Porter, somewhat sentimental, Irish ballad.

  Hart’s hands dropped to his lap, and he sighed.

  Budofsky leaned close to him and whispered, “What’s the matter?”

  “I think you got yourself a voice that can’t be trained,” he said, rising out of his seat. “What you heard is all you’re ever going to get.” He squeezed out past Budofsky, walked down the aisle. “Okay, young feller,” he said. “Let’s you and me see what we can do.”

  Barchester Towers, a luxury thirty-story glass condominium with several tiers of setbacks, was situated at Seventy-seventh Street and the East River. The spacious lobby had marble floors, burnished wood walls, and large, somewhat worn tapestries.

  When Alejandro got out of the car that Che-Che had sent for him, he was met by one of the drug lord’s crew and escorted past the doormen and the concierge to a waiting elevator. His escort said nothing as the two of them rode up to the penthouse.

  Che-Che had the entire top floor. The apartment had a wraparound terrace and a glass-walled living room. In the foyer Alejandro was met by a huge man with a boxer’s battered face. He was wearing a butler’s white jacket, jeans, sneakers, and a bulge on his hip.

  “Mr. Morales is waiting for you inside,” the man said, and led Alejandro into a large room with five seating groups, mostly quite good French and English antiques. In contrast there was a pool table in one corner of the room and many video games scattered about. There were large groups of stuffed animals, including an enormous giraffe, an elephant, and a lion, toys for the children of giants, all standing on the floor. There were three buckets filled with ice holding bottles of Dom Pérignon and silver bowls holding crystal containers of Beluga Malossal caviar.

  Walking inside, Alejandro was somewhat stunned by the quality of the antiques, with their carved and painted wood, silk brocade coverings. No way Che-Che put that stuff together, he thought.

  Morales, dressed only in his briefs and straw sandals and a shark-tooth necklace, was playing a space war video with total concentration.

  “Who’s winning?” Alejandro asked, coming up behind the drug lord.

  “Me,” he said, adding without looking away from the game, “I want you to repack the parachutes. Have them ready to be picked up tomorrow afternoon.”

  He walked away from the game, over to a bowl of caviar. After scooping up a glob on a knife made of horn, he licked it off the blade and flipped the knife back into the black mass. He picked up a manila envelope from the same table that the silver bowl was on and handed it to Alejandro. He said, “Fifty thousand dollars for doing a good job. Parapoint was smart, real smart.”

  “Thanks,” Alejandro said, holding the envelope in his hand and wondering if it would fit inside his shirt.

  Che-Che went over and embraced a giant panda, snuggling close, brushing his cheek against the soft fur. “When I was a kid, I never had any toys. Now I buy whatever I want. I got these stuffed animals in all my apartments to remind me that I wasn’t really shit when I was a kid.” He let go of the panda and pointed to a glass door. “Let’s go out on the terrace and talk. My enemies have lasers that can pick up the vibrations of our conversation.”

  The city was spread out beneath them, the lights, the roadways, the majestic bridges, the broad ribbons of water dividing the land. Looking off the edge of the roof, Che-Che said, “I feel like the serpent god Coaticue with my body coiled around it all.”

  Alejandro stared at him in momentary disbelief. “I hope you don’t expect me to call you ‘my lord.’”

  Che-Che laughed. “You’re the only one who would dare talk to me like that.”

  “That’s because we are brothers.”

  A fierce, almost savage expression came over Che-Che’s face. He turned to face Alejandro and said thoughtfully, “When I was a boy pimping in Ixtapa, I used to run women back and forth between the fancy hotels. They gave gringos cut-rate blow jobs while their wives took cha-cha lessons. Over the years I’ve grown to hate the gringos. They’re all pigs; they look down on our people, treat them like shit.” He looked away from his friend. “We traficantes are the only ones who really do for our people. We build them soccer fields, hospitals, we get them doctors when they need them.”

  Alejandro nodded agreement. “The gringos hate us because they didn’t invent the drug trade.”

  Che-Che flashed a bitter smile at him. “All that stuff about you wanting to come in with us in order to buy your mother a house was bullshit, wasn’t it? You came with us because you wanted the money, the excitement.”

  “No, Che-Che.” He looked away off in the distance, selecting his words carefully. “You and me are sons of Cortés and Cuauhtémoc, we’re mestizos. Down deep all our people have a secret pride that the mestizaje, the mixed-blood Mexicans, control the drug business. It’s our revenge against all of them.”

  Che-Che embraced him, kissing both his cheeks. “It’s lonely sometimes. I’m happy you’re with me.” Moving his mouth close to Alejandro’s ear, he whispered in idiomatic Tarascan, “Trust no one, and don’t ever mention this conversation to anyone—especially Pizzaro and his whore, Judith.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s walk.”

  They strolled along the terrace.

  “I might have come up with one or two things that could wash your money more efficiently,” Alejandro offered.

  Che-Che looked openly pleased. “That’s good, because my money is starting to be a real problem. Not enough washing machines, amigo.”

  “What about Road Town?” Alejandro asked casually.

  “The green has to be transported by hand; that limits the amount we can wash at any one time. BCCI, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, used to wash as much as we gave them for two points. They’d wire-transfer my money into my accounts in Luxembourg and Panama. Since they went out of business, we’ve been forced to go back to using cells of five or six ‘smurfs’ who travel around the country buying just short of ten thousand dollars’ worth of cashier and bank checks to get around the reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act.…”

  Listening to the drug lord’s litany of complaints, Alejandro thought how much like the CEO of a large corporation he sounded.

  “… we don’t leave a paper trail. But smurfing means we gotta spend a lot of time breaking down the money to under ten K, and then getting it to our smurfs. All this is expensive and dangerous. Recently a couple of our smurfs were taken off.”

  “You need inside knowledge to rip off money people.”

  “Pizzaro is checking on it.”

  Running his finger along the ledge of the terrace, Alejandro said, “And who is checking on Pizzaro?”

  Che-Che shot him a sharp look but said nothing. Walking on down the terrace, he said, “Tell me what you’ve come up with to help me wash my money.”

  Alejandro didn’t respond immediately, and then it was with a question rather than an answer. “The purpose of washing money is to sneak large amounts of dirty money into the banking system, right?”

  “So?”

  “So the fastest way of doing that besides wire transfers is to load up a plane and fly it to a friendly offshore bank. Only problem is that the DEA, Customs, and the CIA have a net over th
is country and spot your money planes. They try to force them to land; sometimes they even shoot them down. But when they don’t, they follow them to their destination and radio ahead to have the local police waiting for them. Then the locals take a big chunk of your cash to allow your money in.”

  Che-Che nodded unhappily. “The fucking DEA gets off on helping other cops to steal our money. The DEA tipped off the Bolivians a few weeks ago. When a money plane landed, the cops and the army were waiting, the vultures. They grabbed eight million dollars of our money, called it an ‘import tax.’”

  Judging that this was the right moment, Alejandro suggested, “Why don’t we use Parapoint to drop bags of money on the deck of a boat just outside the territorial limits? The boat can dock in some offshore country with a friendly banking system. They’d wire-transfer the green anywhere in the world for you.”

  Alejandro looked at Che-Che, watching his expression as he considered the idea for a long, thoughtful moment.

  Staring off at the clouds gathering in the north, Che-Che asked, “What do you want for yourself out of all this?”

  “I want to swim where there are no sharks.”

  On Thursday morning, Alejandro completed his last show a little before four. Returning his audience’s applause after his encore, he looked up in the loft and saw Che-Che, Jasmine, and the two Oriental men from Thomas Cay looking down at him.

  He ran off the stage, went into his dressing room, and changed, tossing his sweaty clothes onto the swelling heap on the floor. He pushed open the metal door and stepped out into the parking lot.

  During his drive home, he kept repeating the name Jasmine over and over. What the hell was she doing sitting up there with those guys? he kept asking himself. Then he remembered seeing a familiar yellow ribbon in an ashtray in Morales’s apartment. His mind suddenly made the connection, and he pictured Jasmine—always with just such a yellow ribbon in her queue.

  Back at his apartment he undressed and took a shower, continuing to review all the occasions he had seen Jasmine and Che-Che together. His instincts told him that there was more to the relationship between the two. Now the yellow ribbon clinched it. Wearing only briefs, he walked into the living room. He took down the Aztec head from the shelf and went back into the bedroom. Sitting on the mattress, he took out the burst transmitter and then reached back inside the cavity. Using his fingers, he peeled off the badge taped to its roof and pulled it out. He stared at the NYPD detective shield, turned it over, and read the plaque on the back: “Detective Endowment Association. Presented to Detective First Grade Eamon Monahan on his retirement July 2, 1963.”