“But of course I want to buy them. My locks aren’t much good without your keys, now are they? What kind of price increase are you talking about?”
“Well, sir, that is the rub, if you know what I mean. We have to get an average of ten dollars per key now. I know that is a lot, but that’s what my boss said would be our new price. You wouldn’t expect me to violate something my boss said, now would you?”
“I don’t give a good goddamn what you do with your boss. That is a ridiculous price increase, and I won’t stand for it. This is blackmail! I will not tolerate it!”
“Sir, you are welcome to get your keys from another vendor. But our keys are the only ones that will work in your locks. And, as I have been told, patents protect them, so I don’t see what you are going to do about this situation; I surely don’t. Well, good luck to y’all.”
Borstad realized he’d not done a good job investigating Vulcan Systems, or Mr. Felix Ortega. He was screwed. He’d bought a company that made locks he couldn’t sell without keys. To get the keys, he must submit to onerous blackmail demands. Ten dollars a key, two keys per lockset. Ridiculous. It took all the profit from the product. If he tried to increase his sales price to cover the increase in cost for keys, he’d be priced out of the market. There were other locksets close to or comparable to Vulcan’s, but those sold at lower price points.
In the next few days, Borstad made futile efforts to find another key maker that could replace the blackmailing firm in Orlando. There was no key compatible with the Vulcan locksets system. He would be forced to buy his keys from Orlando at the tenfold price increase. The new contract he reluctantly signed also decreed all purchases would be CIA. Yes, he had been screwed…royally.
It would be several months before Borstad learned of Mr. Ortega’s minority interest in his cousin’s Orlando key firm. Family is most important in the Cuban culture. Mr. Ortega believed families should support one another. And his did. Mr. Ortega’s investment in his cousin’s key company would continue to pay him increased dividends for the foreseeable future.
The new year of 1979 found Mr. Ortega, now retired from his labors, sitting on the fantail of his large fishing trawler in the Jacksonville marina. Nesting gulls voiced the serenity of the harbor and the setting sun cast a golden hue over the water. That golden tint reflected onto the face of Mr. Ortega. With a cold Corona in one hand, and a good Cuban Monticristo cigar in the other, he thought, It is a law of nature with the Anglos: Screw them before they can screw you.
Twenty-nine
“Kites rise highest against the wind—not with it.” ~ Winston Churchill
TUESDAY—SECOND DAY of the NEW YEAR | Sacramento is a small town, despite being the capitol of a very large state. The INS office was located three floors below Mulholland’s office, and that is where he went. He showed his FBI creds to the duty officer at the INS information desk. That’s a misnomer—Information Desk. He thought the label was a little deceiving. Someone with a sense of humor in public relations came up with that handle. There is no way to get any information from the woman sitting there, other than directions to the powder room.
Mulholland asked for Mandy, the person he’d last spoken to on the phone. She pointed Mulholland toward the back, past desks mostly occupied with people at work. On the phone, Mulholland had explained he did not know the passport name his quest used, so he would have to review videotapes as passengers embarked to the island. Mandy said she was happy to put a face with the voice on the phone. She led him to a small room with video monitors arranged on the walls.
Mulholland had requested videotapes for the timeframe Rubens might have gone through customs in Seattle. Mandy had the relevant tapes queued up and ready. She left the room after making sure he understood how to use the controls. He thanked her and went to work watching a procession of people he didn’t know parade past the concealed camera lens.
Each tape, he was informed, contained six hours of filmed content. Mandy had positioned the tape to the time thirty minutes before the identified flight departure to the Bahamas. He watched, and watched some more. No one he saw looked anything like the short, buff, expensively dressed man he’d seen in the CapVest building. Still he watched, but never saw anyone who resembled Bennie Rubens.
The time counter at the bottom of the screen showed the identified flight to be fast approaching last call for boarding. The time arrived, and then passed. He watched some more. Ten minutes after the flight departure time, he stopped watching. The next flight that took Seattle passengers to the islands departed at eighteen minutes after midnight. He could ask her for that surveillance tape. He could also wish Bennie Rubens would send him a note telling him where he was hiding, but neither of those things was going to happen. He’d guessed wrong. This was a blown effort. His first assignment as lead and he’d failed. Of all the things in this universe, Supervising Special Agent Greg Mulholland hated failure more than anything.
He stepped out into the cavernous interior of the INS office. He studied the people working at their desks, looking for the one Mandy used. It seemed there were hundreds of them. Okay, he told himself. Take it by the numbers—one column up from where he stood, then over a column and back down. Methodical search, just like he’d been taught at Quantico. He scanned to the fourth column, second row up, when a small voice behind him asked, “Are you looking for me?”
“Hi, there, Mandy. Yes, I was. Do you have a phone I might use to call the airline?”
“Sure, use my desk over there.” She pointed to column five, row six. He walked to C5 R6, picked up her handset, and dialed nine for an outside line. He asked information for a listing of Jamaica Air and dialed the number. He asked about the actual departure time of Flight 1103 on the date Rubens was reported missing. Mulholland was told the flight had a weather delay. He was assured this was rare, that the airline had an enviable record of on-time departures and arrivals. Flight 1103 left Seattle ninety-six minutes late. Ninety-six minutes. Hey, maybe I didn’t miss Rubens after all.
Back in the small video room, he continued to play the tape for the next ten minutes; then, there he was. He found Bennie Rubens, who held the hand of a very attractive woman by his side. They passed through the customs booth and the lens photographed their walk into the terminal to board the delayed Jamaica Air Flight 1103. Mulholland now had a positive ID of Bennie Rubens and, he assumed, of BJ Dreaver.
As of today, the two had been in Grand Bahama sixteen days. Yeah, but are they still there? Mulholland went back to C5 R6 and asked Mandy for the passport information Rubens and his friend used. She followed him into the video room and wrote down some numbers from the paused tape screen. It was frozen on the faces of the fugitive pair. Back at Mandy’s computer, Mulholland saw that the INS system was very efficient. How could that be? Efficiency in the Federal bureaucracy? It didn’t compute, but he was not going to argue. Woody Allen’s advice would have been, ‘Take the money and run.’ He did.
Avery Dannenberg and Barbara J. Dannenberg had new US passports issued by the Los Angeles office. Strange they used LA instead of Seattle’s perfectly good immigration office, Mulholland thought, and the two phonies now had legitimate passports. Maybe a cohort worked with them in LA. I’ll have to let someone in the Department of Justice know about that. Not my problem. My problem is looking back at me from the still photos taken off the surveillance tape: a blow-up of each of their faces in full frontal pose. If they are still on the island, I’ve got them—both of them, if they are still there.
He left the room and waited until Mandy looked up from her desk. He waved to her. She stood, and then walked quickly to him in the corridor outside the video room. Your Federal government at work! “I need to know if the Dannenbergs are still on the island. Is there a way you can check for me?”
“Sure, unless they took an interisland plane or boat to another island. There are a lot of those small islands down there, you know.”
“Yes, I do know, but I’m betting on them still being there. Yo
u can help big time if you confirm that for me.”
In a few minutes, Mandy had confirmed the passports used by the Dannenbergs had not been processed through any immigration port as of midnight last night. He thanked his immigration clerk helper and left Mandy’s office, heading up the stairs to his office.
At his own desk, Mulholland called the police department in Freeport, Grand Bahama. He spoke with a man whose British accent was straight from New Scotland Yard, precise and clipped. The man told him the subject passports belonged to registered guests of the best resort hotel in Grand Bahama. He knew they had not checked out as their passports were still in the hotel manager’s safe. Mulholland thanked him. The policeman he spoke with was chief constable for the Freeport Constabulary. He wrote down the phone number and address in Freeport of the law enforcement office. Mulholland knew when he got into Freeport, he’d need to make a courtesy call on the chief, possibly to deposit his sidearm while on the island. No firearms on the island, other than police personnel. That was their law.
Next, Mulholland called Stacy to let her know he would be gone for a few days. He had a line on Bennie Rubens and the woman he was with in Freeport, Grand Bahama. “I love you, baby. You take care while I’m away, okay?”
“I love you, too, Greg. You are the guy who has to be careful. Don’t do anything foolish that might get my man hurt. Call me when you can, sweetheart. I love you. Bye.”
Thirty
“A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.” ~ Washington Irving
WEDNESDAY—JANUARY | Greg Mulholland wondered how the Bahamas managed to stay in the tourist business. It was virtually impossible to fly here from almost anywhere. He arrived from Sacramento with a stiff neck and a jet-lag headache from sleeping on the flight. He was sure it had become a permanent part of his physicality.
Stacy told him a few days earlier her request for a transfer to Sacramento was going to be approved. He was happy for both of them. Remembering his last phone conversation with the beautiful SEC litigator almost made him forget about his stiff neck as he entered the Freeport Constabulary office for the protocol meeting with its chief.
Afterward, Mulholland was pleased with his meeting. The duty officer allowed him to keep his FBI-issue Smith & Wesson Model 13.357 Magnum. When he entered the chief constable’s office to pay his respects, Mulholland extended his hand, with a smile of appreciation on his lips, said, “Mulholland sir, Supervising Special Agent Greg Mulholland, but please, call me Greg. And what may I call you, sir?”
The chief constable looked at the young man’s outstretched hand, keeping his tucked together behind his stiff British back. Then he looked into the agent’s eyes and held his gaze for another second or two. “You may call me Chief Constable, sir.” And with that formality concluded, the chief constable turned on his heel in proper British cadence and strode from the room.
The chief’s rationalization for making an exception to the gun law was that Mulholland was hunting a killer, and sending an FBI agent out unarmed would not be appreciated by the country that provided the tourists who kept the island’s economy moving. It was an easy call.
The Bahamian morning sun was in full evidence as Mulholland left the constabulary. He allowed himself the pleasure of a little self-delusion. If I can find and arrest those two I’m hunting, the constabulary will hold them in custody until agents from the Hoover Building can take charge. The next day, I’ll fly to be with Stacy. Oh, if only I can make that work!
He was given an official car by the chief generosity for his investigation. The young patrol officer driver was polite but quiet as they drove to the hotel. Since Mulholland had no official standing on the island, he suggested Constable Evans ask at the desk for Dannenbergs room number. Both the room number and location were easily reported: top floor, all of it. They left the hotel; Mulholland thanked the constable for his assistance and sent him back to his stationhouse alone.
Mulholland took a sidewalk seat at the café across the street from the hotel. I hate stakeouts, especially those done solo. Having a partner makes the time go by faster, and it is always good to have a backup in case of…well, just in case. The surveillance photos of the Dannenberg couple were in his shirt pocket. If either came out the front entrance, they would be seen and followed. That was his plan. Neither of them did in the two hours he sat in the café. Others came and left the building. One that entered unnoticed by the FBI agent was Gambol Schwartz, whom Agent Mulholland had never seen or heard of and, therefore, took no notice.
Amiti, now using the alias Gambol Schwartz, looked like he belonged in the crowd and attracted no one’s attention as he walked into the lobby. The last time he used that alias, he wore a false Van Dyke goatee and longhaired gray wig. Wearing a light-colored seersucker suit, open-collared shirt, and carrying a brown attaché, Amiti strode toward the bank of elevators, smiling at the duty desk clerk. A gentleman’s necktie was as hard to find on the island as shade from the relentless sunshine. The Assassin knew where he was going. The other Rubens provided the details of his brother’s room.
Access to the penthouse suite was problematic. The elevator to the sixth floor opened directly into the penthouse foyer. The singular access to that floor was via the elevator, which required security card activation. The Assassin entered the lobby elevator and pushed the button for the fifth floor. Exiting the cab, he quickly located the stairwell to the roof. Walking on the wood-slat walkway over the gravel-covered roof, he stopped directly over the penthouse suite’s balcony deck. The flat-roofed building had no parapet walls to interfere with the Assassin’s task. Slowly and cautiously, he bent to one knee, extended his body, and crawled to the roof edge.
The Assassin assembled a mirror with telescoping arm from his attaché case and eased it out over the edge and down, rotating it to look onto the veranda. Care in positioning the appliance was paramount, as he did not want the mirror to reflect the sun back to the veranda. The penthouse suite included a large, open patio with a four-person spa tub. His field of view was the whole of the promenade and about six feet into the penthouse beyond the open French doors that invited the Caribbean breezes. Directly below him was a woman sunning herself on a chaise, apparently sleeping.
Her bikini top lay on the tile deck, alongside a pair of sunglasses and an open magazine. The Assassin gazed at the female’s perfect hourglass figure. The woman’s hips and bust line appeared to be of equal width, bracketing a slender waist. He very much liked what he saw in his mirror. The Assassin knew only eight percent of women had a shape like that. He must have remembered the factoid because that form was so attractive to him. Her arms, folded back and cradling her head, lifted her breasts to attention. What lovely breasts she had, soft and supple, yet firm. Her nipples were semi-erect. I wonder what she is dreaming. He could see her exposed skin was slathered with tanning oil. That was, her entire body except a small patch of bikini cloth which desperately tried to cover her crotch. The reflected sunlight gave her an erotic radiance and highlighted her many curves. It was difficult for him to take his eyes off the beauty below, but reluctantly, he did.
Twisting the rod just so, he moved the glass to the right to look into the room beyond the veranda as far as possible. There was an empty wine glass on the end table next to Bennie. He saw him sitting on the couch, head down, chin on his chest and his eyes closed. He looked enough like the photo his brother provided for positive identification. Killing the wrong guy in his line of work was professional suicide and was to be avoided, at all costs. Both occupants of the sixth floor were napping.
The Assassin’s plan was to descend from the roof and enter the suite from the veranda. He now needed to wait until they went to another part of the penthouse, and which meant he had to wait until they finished their naps. The sun would be up for almost two more hours. Larry Rubens, aka Dallas, said the couple would leave the suite for cocktails and dinner around 7:30. He said Bennie was a room service snob, so they would be going out. Another hour or so of wa
iting would determine the accuracy of the Dallas prediction. The Assassin refocused his mirror on the sleeping beauty. If he must wait, he might as well enjoy the quality visuals.
As the Assassin waited for them to move, he considered the events that caused him to be here now. His mind fell on the lies Dallas told and the promise given to himself that he would kill Dallas because of his betrayal. Laying on the edge of the roof, he deduced that the second Rubens, the one with the gorgeous lady friend, must be the associate Dallas lied about. That bastard said he was the one making the contract. The Assassin would make a paid hit on the Dallas associate, and then take out the lying hypocrite as a freebie. That works just fine for me, he thought. Payback for deceit is justified in my line of work.
Two hours of waiting convinced Mulholland a more proactive role was called for. He was about to leave the café when he saw a familiar face approaching him from up the street. Here came Garth Wainwright, in blue jeans, a golf shirt, and the ever-present black Tony Lama boots.
“What the hell! Why are you here? How did you get here? Just what in the name of good sense do you think you are doing?”
“And a hearty howdy-do to you, too, old friend. Same as you, airplane, and Stacy and Lacey.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to answer your several questions. I’m here to help you get the bad guys. I flew from LAX on a plane, and Stacy told Lacey you found Bennie Rubens here in Freeport, so I came.”
The Tipping Point: A Wainwright Mystery Page 27
