by Dean Ing
So intent was Romana on noisily dragging the last bullion box into place inside the van, shortly after 7:30, that she did not hear the vehicle that pulled into her driveway.
33
JUNE 1994
Agents Wade EckerT and Newton Jessup shared a single mood - foul - as they left their Fresno FBI office Tuesday afternoon under the baleful glare of their supervisor, Senior Agent Walter Hildreth. That mood did not improve for either of them as they drove into the parking lot of the state Fish & Game lab.
The morning had not gone well, especially for Newt Jessup, whose savage hangover was still hanging in there. Walt Hildreth, one of the old spit-and-polish guys who had become an agent when law or accounting degrees were required, showed little sympathy for the foibles of younger agents. As one wag put it, Hildreth had been in the Bureau so long, he could remember when Jedgar Hoover was too young for high heels.
Nowadays, Hildreth just wanted his day to run smoothly. When it didn't, he tended to steamroll the lumps. During the morning's monumental ass-chew, Hildreth had placed Agents Eckert and Jessup on notice. He'd wondered aloud whether Heckle and Jeckle, as he called them, would give him a coronary before his impending retirement. Then he sent them out on a call and his parting words were still ringing in their heads: "Even you two can't screw this up - it's too picayune. But if you find a way, you'll both be on unpaid leave tomorrow. Count on it."
Newt Jessup got out of their sedan too quickly for his aching head to assimilate the motion. Because he didn't intend for Eckert or anybody else to intuit what his Tic-Tacs were hiding, Newt leaned back against the car in an attitude of deep thought. What he was thinking was, I'm about to throw up.
Eckert gave him a disgusted glance. "Christ! You forgot your piece. Or your ID."
Somehow Newt Jessup, who had skipped lunch, kept his breakfast eggs and bacon down. "Those are your tricks, not mine. I was just trying to remember the statute that sent us here." With that, he set out toward the building.
"Effective as of August, 'ninety-one," Eckert furnished, keeping pace. "Vandalizing research animal facilities is now a violation of federal statute - "
"Okay, save it for the perp," Newt snarled, and made his face presentable for the receptionist. Both men flashed their ID at the same instant, identical badges in identical cases.
The lady seemed impressed but, "Director Lockhart is out for the week," she confessed. "Would you like to see Mr. Isaacs? He's Acting."
Newt blinked and turned to Eckert. "An actor named Isaacs?"
Eckert, muttering to his companion: "Acting director, putz." To the lady: "That's fine, he was the complainant anyway." As the receptionist consulted her intercom, Wade Eckert took Newt's arm and steered him aside. "Goddamn, you got bombed at lunch, didn't you?"
A violent head shake nearly shook Newt Jessup's brains loose. "Swear to God!" he whispered furiously.
"That was last night. Now leave me the fuck alone - I'll make it."
Moments later, a balding specimen fussed toward them, removing a long lab coat and offering clip-on badges. "Douglas Isaacs." He beamed nervously. "You guys really respond fast, I'll say that." And he ushered them into the director's little office, shutting the door.
Newt Jessup collapsed into a chair as though someone had extracted his spinal column; Wade Eckert stood and took the initiative. It was the Bureau's understanding, he said, that a lab tech named Andrew Soriano had been caught vandalizing the lab. Would Mr. Isaacs care to fill in some details before they accosted the man?
Sensitive to the fact that the FBI men's aspects were not exactly benign, Acting Director Isaacs did a lot of lip licking and eye darting as he talked, like a man wondering whether this whole thing was shaping up into a mistake. With each moment, Eckert became more convinced that it was exactly that.
Eckert interpreted the scenario as follows: a second banana named Isaacs takes the reins of a small state facility for a few days while the boss is on a junket; had seen a lab tech kidnapping - or was it catnapping - some stray kittens from the lab the previous Friday; obviously doesn't like the tech, Soriano, anyhow, realizes he has the power, momentarily, to stick it to Soriano because those stray kittens were there for certain lab tests for a disease believed to be mildly communicable. And theft of lab assets of this kind was now a federal offense. Of five kittens, two had disappeared. Isaacs swore he'd seen one of the furry mites struggling from the vee of Soriano's jacket as he left the building after work on Friday. Isaacs's firm conclusion was that the tech had taken both.
Newt Jessup suddenly came to life. "Five P.M., late June in Fresno, and the guy's wearing a jacket?"
His brows jumped in a kind of facial shrug.
"Warding off the heat, maybe," Eckert put in. "Ah, you sure it wasn't a fur-lined jacket?"
"With a cat's head sewn on the lapel? I don't think so," Isaacs said, quick to see the direction of Wade Eckert's query. "Even though I happen to know Andy does pretty fair taxidermy. And correct me if I'm wrong, but those were, technically speaking, research animals. Their theft comes under the heading of vandalism. Technically."
"Technically," Eckert agreed, though his tone denied it. "Even if three of your research animals are still in the cage."
"Well - two," said Isaacs. "One of them is, um, at another facility for - observation."
Eckert had his notebook out. "What facility?"
After a moment, Isaacs brazened it out: "Our receptionist's facility." He saw something in Eckert's face and added with some heat, "We'd done the serology tests, and the kittens weren't infected, after all, and she'd already named it, and . . . and dammit, it was my responsibility."
Eckert: "So what happens to the ones you've got left?"
"Humane Society," Isaacs said.
Newt heaved a long sigh. "Let me get this straight, Mr. Isaacs. The kittens were okay, and you'd already given one away - "
"Loaned it," Isaacs insisted, flushing.
"But a couple you hadn't given - loaned away were taken, maybe on the same kind of loan, by one of your other people. And yet you want this guy, Soriano, picked up on federal charges."
"The case of the purloined pussies," Eckert murmured. "Excuse me if I don't take this too seriously, but don't we have a simple matter of, say, lab rivalry here?"
Isaacs folded his arms. "I hardly consider the young man a rival. Andy stole those animals. Technically, it's a form of vandalism, which is now a federal offense."
Newt Jessup, eyes closed against a particularly vicious pang midway between the furrows in his forehead, put up one hand. "And you want us to do - what?"
From the fast blinks Isaacs gave them, it seemed that question had never occurred to him. But Doug Isaacs was a quick thinker. "Whack his balls. Get those cats back. Let him know it's serious."
"But it's not serious," Newt said, his pain transmogrified into irritation. "It's" - he recalled a perfect word for it, the very word old Walt Hildreth had used - "it's picayune. Guy brings the animals back, you send 'em up the river for a little therapeutic carbon monoxide; or he goes to the Humane Society and gets 'em back anyway; or now he's afraid to, and they go to that big sandbox in the sky. Where does that leave us?"
"Doing your job," said Isaacs.
"Doing what your own director should do when he gets back," Eckert said, "busting the guy's chops a little. Isaacs, you don't really expect us to snap the cuffs on this tech, read him his rights, take him downtown, lay real charges on him, all that?"
"Wouldn't hurt him any," Isaacs said. "But I'll settle for your telling him who's in authority around here and why he can't vandalize this place at his pleasure."
Newt Jessup stood up, took his bearings, headed for the door. "We hear you: shake him up, throw the fear of God and Douglas Isaacs into him, see that he doesn't track mud across your turf again. You're demanding that we do one of those things we don't do, but we can sidle up close to it if you don't get in the way." Any other time, Jessup would have stopped the charade here and now. But Hildreth w
anted it handled, and Isaacs was the sort who'd bend Hildreth's ear again; and if Walt Hildreth's ear got burned, he would chew on Jessup's like a goddamn ferret. Newt Jessup sighed. "Now let us do the talking, Mr. Isaacs.
Just show us to your Mr. Soriano."
Isaacs put on his lab coat again and led them down a hallway past one bend, pausing to frown toward an open door from which issued several voices, their echoes indicating a cavernous room. Jessup and Eckert would have walked in, but Isaacs shook his head. "Tour group," he said. "That's the repository for warehousing of specimens and evidence." He motioned them forward and walked on.
Newt Jessup got a glimpse inside that lasted only seconds, but would remain with him forever: a room two stories high and, in it, a motley group of women wearing clip-on badges. They listened to a lab-coated assistant and gawked at metal shelving piled high with animal pelts, carved walrus tusks, cowboy boots tipped by real cobra heads, pharmaceutical extracts of bear gall, rhino horn, and tiger penis labeled in English and Chinese: a stunning display of the outrageous and expensive trivia that compel grown men to hunt other creatures to extinction.
Presently Isaacs pointed in silence toward a half-open door down the hallway. "Let us handle this, Mr.
Acting Director," Wade Eckert said in a second warning.
"Okay, but I wouldn't miss this for the world," said Isaacs.
The Bureau men stood together to confer in soft rumbles. "We're not gonna take this guy in," Newt said, mindful of the paperwork.
"Nah, but we can get him as far as the front door," Wade said. "Weren't you listening? We also remind Isaacs of all the hassle the charges would be for him, and then let Soriano off with a scare. Shit, we haven't any proof the guy took the animals anyhow, and I don't feel like getting a search warrant to turn the poor guy's house inside out for two pocketfuls of puddytat. Jeez, Hildreth would never let us hear the end of it."
"And we keep the office caseload down." Newt nodded. "What do you think about cuffs?"
"Oh, come on!" Wade scoffed. "Just dangle 'em on your pinkie - they'll get his attention."
And, with that, Agents Eckert and Jessup stepped smartly into the little guy's office.
Soriano nodded brightly when his name was used, a friendly smile forming. He saw the preferred IDs and the smile began to die by millimeters as he looked back and forth at these large, formidable Feds. He also saw the stainless-steel handcuffs Jessup held. And Wade Eckert managed to make it sound like this was the most important bust since Bonnie and Clyde. ". . . Serious breach of federal statutes . . ." and ". . .
theft of multiple assets from a research facility." At no time did Wade Eckert make specific reference to animals - especially kittens - because he feared he might start to snicker. "I'm afraid you'll have to come with us," he ended, avoiding the more formal phrases that spelled out "arrest."
Eckert decided he'd done it just right because young Soriano's face went dead white, hands fidgeting slightly, before he took control of himself with a valiant effort. "I can't imagine what you mean." He stood erect, squaring his shoulders, spotting Doug Isaacs in the door frame. The apprehension on Soriano's face told Eckert that the little guy was lying; he was busy imagining exactly what the agent meant. "But I'm sure we can get this straightened up," Soriano assured them with a new, imposing calmness. He stepped to the door, waited for the agents to follow him into the hall, and closed the door behind him. He flashed them the smile of a man disdaining a blindfold. "I'm ready."
By God, I think he is, Eckert thought. Tougher than he looks. He felt a pang of sympathy for the little guy. They walked together down the hall until, at the turn, Soriano stopped. "Oh hell, let me get my jacket and shut down my screen. You've got me a bit flustered, guys."
Jessup would have gone with him, but Eckert tugged at his companion's sleeve. "Where can he go?" he said softly.
Where, indeed. Soriano's windowless office had only one door, and the little fellow stepped through it, then shut it again. It was on the tip of Newt's tongue to remark that this was a failure of standard procedure; you didn't accost a suspect and then let him out of your sight. Whatthehell, this isn't a real arrest, he thought, and leaned against the wall and waited.
And waited. Ten seconds stretched to thirty before the two agents made eye contact. Eckert: "What's he doing in there?"
Jessup: "The lambada. Go ask him." But both agents hurried to the door. It would not open.
"Locked," Eckert said in disbelief.
"Can't be - there's no lock on his door," Isaacs' protested. Wade Eckert did an "after you, Alphonse"
hand-wave and Doug Isaacs, after trying the door himself, kicked the thing open. A small steel ratchet lock, favored by people who frequent cheap motels, clattered across the floor as the agents crowded into the room.
Jessup marched to the coat locker in one corner, obviously the only place in the room where anyone would be hiding. It pained him more than anyone could know to pound on the locker with his closed fist; but he did it, hoping the noise would hurt their trapped fugitive more. "All right, Soriano, you want to add unlawful flight to it? You're under," he began as he swung the locker door wide.
The locker was untenanted.
"I knew it, I knew it," Isaacs stammered. "I've never trusted that bastard; it's always the quiet ones who - "
But Newt Jessup's silent pointing finger stopped his tirade. Newt had scanned under the desk; peered into the glass-fronted bookcase with its half-empty shelves; studied the cement-block walls; then noticed that one of the big acoustic ceiling tiles over Soriano's desk was now awry in its metal frame. "There he goes," he said.
"Hold it," said Eckert climbing onto the desk, lifting the two-foot panel out to peer into the space above the false ceiling. He hopped down again with a head shake. "Mr. Isaacs, please usher all the civilians out of this lab and secure it. Now!" he added. When Isaacs disappeared down the hall, Eckert laid a hand on Jessup's shoulder. "Okay, we've already lost procedure when Soriano waltzed out of sight. My next posting may be Point Barrow, Alaska, paw printing polar bears. Let's not make it any worse. I can hear Hildreth now. . ."
"Heckle and Jeckle ride again. I know, you don't have to tell me," Newt moaned. "You're senior to me; what's the drill?"
"I'm going up into the ceiling. You find the rear entrance from the hallway, secure it, see if you can gain access above the ceiling from there. Sumbitch's gotta be here somewhere." And Wade Eckert hopped onto the desk again, struggling to gain handholds above the false ceiling.
"We oughta be calling in backup." Newt trotted down the hall. "But you want to keep this just between us, don't you? Settle it all down, keep it off the caseload. Fat chance," he said, but he said it all to himself.
Isaacs was the sort who would raise a stink, and a letter of censure was the very least they'd see out of this fine fuckup.
Eckert had crawled ten feet on hands and knees above a ceiling that swayed, and Jessup was one second down the hall, when the shoulder-height bookcase swung open, all the shelves swinging as one because they had been framed that way with thin aircraft plywood. Andy Soriano had always felt just a little safer with his masterpiece of cabinetry so near, not even seriously fantasizing that he might ever have to use its most special feature. Though each shelf had its separate glass drop-front, all of the shelves could be made to swing out together on hidden hinges. And while a few real books occupied the cabinet, most of the books on the shelves were false, mere shells cemented together. The groupings of the false books seemed casual, but coincided generally with the shape of a small wiry man, perched on a bicycle seat rather like a monk in a cloister, but kneeling on one knee. A wide-angle door-viewer lens, set into a book spine, allowed Andy to watch the entire room while huddled within arm's reach, mouth open to silence his breathing, hoping the hammer of his heart did not carry three feet to the nearest FBI man.
And they had bought it. This wasn't the time to wonder whether it was the Thomas Concoction, the pheromone tracker hardware, or som
e of his other thefts that had finally set the Feds on him. This was the time to disappear. Knocking that ceiling tile askew had been an inspiration of the moment, sending one of those two-hundred-pound lummoxes overhead and out of sight, into a maze of ducts and wiring.
Andy shoved the bookcase facing aside and scrambled up, dialing the combination of his lower-left desk drawer. He drew out the clothing he had put there two years before: gossamer cotton, strap sandals, other items that he had chosen as his own personal survival kit, his spooker.
His shoes, socks, and trousers went back into the drawer though he transferred items from his pockets to the purse in his spooker; the shirt was okay because he had always fastened his blue-and-yellow Cal Fish
& Game patches on with snaps and the patch came off instantly. Still, he needed a button undone to emplace the falsies, nice obvious C cups, with their adhesive. Twenty-five seconds, he told himself, ramming his feet into the sandals, snapping the wraparound skirt out, then cinching it with Velcro. He could hear women's voices down the hall, raised in confusion and mild protest.
The blonde wig and the hat went on together. He hoped his hand did not tremble too much when he applied lipstick without a mirror, and as his silent internal monitor said, thirty-nine seconds, he remembered to snatch up the cloth purse that emptied his spooker. Forty-four seconds after he cracked open his bookcase, Andy Soriano was moving swiftly down the hall, donning wraparound sunglasses and trying to hold the purse under one arm because it contained fifty $100 bills and a few smaller ones, a few quarters, false ID, and a derringer that would lob a pair of .38-caliber slugs with fair accuracy across an average room. He clipped on his stolen visitor lab pass and turned the corner, slowing his pace as he approached the tour group filing out past the receptionist, some of them murmuring little expressions of dismay.
"I still don't understand why," Andy said in a soft falsetto that carried, turning his face away and dropping the lab pass onto the counter, adding to the scatter of passes.
