HE ABANDONED BUILDING embodied the entire neighborhood: hard and empty, dismal and destitute. The crack heads barely flinched at the sight of the police car pulling up beside the broken chain-link gate. They’d seen it so many times before. The cops came, busted, then released. To the crack heads it didn’t matter. No, all that mattered was the high they were on at the moment, a high that would have to keep them up until the next score. That was how it was on the street. Steal, buy, blow; steal, buy, blow. . . . Smack of glass, a joint, a needle, whatever was going around would have to do.
Ritter climbed from the car. “Best you wait here, mate,” he said, looking back through the window at Horne. “They don’t think much a’ your kind in this neighborhood.”
Horne beckoned to his passenger. “The ticket–you best leave it in the car ‘til you come back.”
The cocky Brit flicked the envelope onto the seat and lit out. Through the twisted gate he went, across the yard, stopping to speak with each junky in his path. “You seen Errol? . . . How ‘bout you, ya’seen Errol?” The larger part of the wasted few were hardly aware someone was speaking to them. The rest merely shook their heads in either calloused contempt or detached indifference.
When Ritter jimmied open the back door of the old processing building, the stench nearly knocked him to his knees. Black clouds of flies swarmed around piles of human waste near the entrance. The druggies and street people called the tactic “cheap security,” a guard against trespassers, cops and other unwanted visitors. But Ritter was no ordinary knucklehead. He knew what it was all about.
Tiptoeing past the repugnant room, he left what air escaped his lungs behind. By the time he’d climbed up to the second floor, the new air he breathed in was only slightly better than the first. “You seen Errol?” he asked twice more, before receiving an affirmative reply.
“In the head, smokin’ a pipe”–this from a young man of no more than 17, glassy-eyed and also on his way up the steps.
Ritter pushed open the bathroom door. There, sitting on a rusty folding chair and sucking the last high from a stubby pipe, was Errol. Though ten years Ritter’s junior and with facial features that matched right down the line, dark rings circled his vacant eyes. Ritter’s animated demeanor belied the squalor of the setting. “Errol, I scored real good!” he enthused.
The other man shifted his gaze away from his dim shadow on the wall. “Hey, Trent, long time. . . .”
“It’s been a bloomin’week, Errol! Listen, mate.” Ritter grabbed him by the shoulders and shook. “I scored a double-header, a hot batch. Look, I even bought a new suit.”
“Ruddy fine threads, too.”
“Errol, you remember Reverend Keller?”
“Sure do,” he slurred in reply. “Runnin’ the lunch over on Stewart.”
“That’s ‘im. He has your share a’me smack.”
“You’re me man!” Errol stuck his hand up to deliver a high-five.
Ritter complied rather ineptly. “Listen, Errol. You go see him ‘bout ten o’clock. Got that? He’s got a package for ya’.”
“‘Bout ten?”
“That’s right. Go see ‘im ‘bout ten, he’ll give you a smack a’ glass in a box.”
“Bloody thanks!” Errol yammered, holding his hand up for yet another slap.
“That’s what brothers are for.”
Safely back in the undercover FBI van, Ritter requested that Horne make one more stop–this one near the Rio bridge, where he dislodged his old passport from its hiding place under a railroad tie–before driving down Stewart to Keller’s soup kitchen. Stopping in front of the rather drab gym, Horne climbed from the car and followed Ritter down the driveway to the back door. Inside the kitchen stood Cook, nervously scanning a shelf lined with gallon jugs of orange juice–all unrefrigerated.
“Hi, Cook. Where’s the reverend?”
“He ain’t here. What do you want?”
“I just got’s t’chat wit’him.”
“Won’t be back for an hour.”
Ritter glanced back at Horne. Keeping his distance, he’d remained out on the steps. “You mind?” he said, caustically. “I need a bit a privacy here.” Horne backed off the steps and into the alley, where he could keep an eye on his mark through the window.
“Cook, I got a program set up back in England. It’ll help me brother get off drugs–you know, clean up his lot.”
Cook leered out at the agent glancing nervously at the fridge–a fridge filled with–well not orange-juice. “What’d you bring him here for?”
Ritter reached inside his jacket and took out an envelope. He held it out and tried to steer Cook’s mind onto the important matter at hand. “Listen, mate, you got t’ give this t’ the reverend. He needs t’ put me brother Errol on a plane. They’ll pick him up in London and lock ‘im down. They’ll think he’s me. . . . Now here’s me passport and the agreement with the man. Make sure Reverend calls the program t’tell ‘em me brother’s on his way. As soon as I help nail Vinnie, then they’ll pay. Please, Cook,” he begged, “make sure he gets on the flight. It’ll save his life.”
“I’ll tell him. You just get the cop outta here.”
“I’m goin’, mate. Just make sure Reverend Keller calls the program t’ tell ‘em when the plane gets in. The money will be wired soon.”
Reverend Keller knocked on the faded turquoise door. The sleazy sounds of illicit lust exhaled from the cracks in the windows and doors and past the throbbing vibrations of the dripping swamp cooler. The pungent smells of alcohol, tobacco and drunkenness stung the fetid air.
After a considerable delay, a garbled voice called out, “It ain’t locked!” Keller eased the door open and peered into the murky trailer. Bino, his red and puffy eyes, didn’t look up from the porno flick. The slender man fumbled to light a cigarette with one hand and took a swig from a bottle clenched in the other. Two empty bottles lay askew on the floor next to the recliner; the ash tray that normally rested on the other side of the chair had toppled over onto the carpet.
“I’ve been sent to find you, Bernalillo!” the reverend’s voice thundered through the noxious room.
Bino squinted over at the man who’d barged into his home. Bright sunlight streamed into the room, past the dark dressed angel standing in the doorway. “Who the hell are you?”
“A friend.”
Bino scoffed. “I don’t need no friends.”
“But I do.”
“Go away.”
“I can’t. I need a gambler.” Keller walked over and turned off the lurid scenes flashing on the screen.
“Sorry. You’ve got the wrong man. I quit.”
“Like you quit drinking?”
“Go away, preacher. You can’t save me.”
“We’ll see.” With that, he seized the slender drunk by the belt and the back of the collar and catapulted him out the door. His broad shoulders and bulky forearms–acquired from years of cranking pipes–came in handy as he muscled Bino into the van. Then he returned to the squalid trailer to retrieve the all-important oxygen tank.
After a quick two-hour nap, three pots of coffee, a cold shower, a shave and a haircut–administered by the preacher’s wife–and a borrowed suit, the former gambler was once more presentable. Reverend Keller’s next stop was the drugstore, where he picked up a couple of boxes of nicotine patches. Returning home, he lined both of Bino’s arms with them to stop the unsteady smoke stack from blowing the deal.
“You’ve got an hour to get your act together,” the preacher said brusquely. “Your daughter’s life depends on you giving the performance of your career. And I hope you haven’t forgotten how to bluff.”
“It won’t work,” Bino kept mumbling. “I met the man once. Mr. Domenico–he’s a harder case than his nephew. The old boss will kill us both.”
“Not if you do your job right.”
Political feathers hit the fan of justice when Congressman MacArthur flew into the Federal Building–on one broken wing–and demanded to see the person in charge. For the next 20 minutes, while Wilding and his secretary rearranged his workload, the congressman nursed his wounded pride by pacing back and forth in the foyer. First, he’d suffered the bruised ego of publicly being accused of credit card fraud; now he felt personally embarrassed by the fact that his wife had refused to stand by him through his terrible ordeal. While he’d waited for their luggage at baggage claims, she had hailed a cab and promptly disappeared without saying a word.
MacArthur bluntly explained the reason for his visit–and was rebuffed just as bluntly. “I’m sorry, Congressman, your daughter’s not a minor and she has the right to privacy,” Wilding replied when he’d had just about enough of the congressman’s posturing. “When my agents did a background check and found out who she was, they asked if they should contact you. Frankly, I can see why she didn’t want us to.”
“You realize I can go over your head?”
“You already did that. That’s why you’re here.”
“This is an outrage,” he harangued, pummeling the desk with the
Wilding sprang to his feet. “Sir, you’ve exceeded my level of tolerance. I suggest you change your methods and work on your manners with me and with your daughter–that is, if you want to have a relationship with her. In the meantime, I have work to do.” He turned to see his guest to the door.
Defeated by his lesser opponent, the congressman mellowed. “I just want what’s best for my daughter.”
Wilding paused in the doorway. “I’m sure you do, sir.”
“Will you give her a message?”
“And what would that be?”
“Her mother’s heart is breaking. Will she at least consider seeing her?”
“I’ll relay the message.”
Four o’clock had come and gone before Sutton brought Stephanie into the Federal Building. Maggie was sent home with the promise that Vinnie was now under control. And with Mitch locked up, any further risk was minimal. Stephanie sized up the situation. The message from her father had been delivered via radio en route to the FBI offices. A tender-voiced woman dispatcher had relayed it, word-forword, over the line. If the emotional roller coaster wasn’t already at its peak, then the thought of speaking with her parents sent it still higher. And seeing Mitch again, that would send it skyrocketing out of control.
She was led to a small interview room on the second floor. It had no windows to the outside, only a tiny pane in the door. Thin fingers of wire embedded in the translucent glass zig-zagged at right angles to one another across the opening. Light filtering in from the hall cast oversized patterns of shadow and light on the floor. Several quiet moments, alone, left time for reflection. The tangle of events and information, claims and counterclaims kept returning to her brain. It all seemed too complicated.
As expected, when the door opened and Mitch stepped into the room, the roller coaster started on its downward spiral. A split second elapsed while he assessed the damages he’d inflicted on her. Then he engulfed her in his arms. “It’s almost over, Stef,” he whispered, a strained smile stretched across his flushed cheeks.
The moment was both awkward and too abrupt, as Stephanie pulled away and dried her cheeks with her fingers. “I need to hear it from you, Mitch. Just tell it to me straight. Did you kill Mike? Did you do any of those terrible things they say you did?”
Mitch leaned back, still clinging to her shoulders, and stared into her deep, sad eyes. “Do you really need to ask?”
She surveyed his face, seeking any hint of deception. Maggie’s words came to mind. Could she see far enough inside him to know his heart? Or did she already know? Digging still deeper, she could feel the answers to her questions come alive. They grew and flowered inside her, like the tiny seeds that had sprung from him to her several months earlier. A rush of tingles surged up and down her spine, then came to rest in her eyes– a soft, twinkling glow. She knew, at that very moment and in an intimate way she couldn’t explain, Mitch’s heart. “No,” she said.
Stephanie raised her slender arms and pressed her palms against his cheeks and ears. Their lips met in a lingering kiss. . . .
“I missed you,” Mitch finally said as he held his bride close. “I know we can get through all this because we have each other.”
The half-hour of bliss flew by. The guard arrived and hauled Mitch away. But for Stephanie a union of hearts had taken place, one that any temporary isolation couldn’t erase. Heartfelt apologies for withholding some of the truth were warmly accepted and no-holds-barred explanations had supplied the much-needed missing pieces to the puzzle. The guard reappeared to escort her out into the hall. She lagged behind, her way of postponing what was next on her agenda, and–in a more subliminal way–to continue to soak in the overpowering feeling of love which she’d just experienced.
Finally forcing herself from the room, she went to place the call. It wouldn’t be easy. The face-to-face meeting later on would be even harder. Two coins from her purse clinked into the slot. A long, apprehensive sigh streamed from her heaving chest. A click came from the other end of the line. “Hello, Mother?”
The routine was the same in every restroom at every casino. Every few hours Sound would casually walk into the bathroom and enter a predetermined stall. Cap’n was always there, sitting on an adjacent toilet, ready to transfer the semi-laundered cash. The current stop would be their last, Sound was informed by way of a piece of toilet tissue scribbled with black ink and flicked under the divider. The briefcase was full; it was time to make their get-away.
Cap’n rented a room on the 7th floor. After signaling Nurse with his fingers what number they were in, he shrewdly slipped her the key. In the elevator on their way up, Sound’s coughing worsened. Intermittent spasms of coughs and wheezes brought silent glares from their fellow passengers. When the last guests exited the lift on the 5th floor, Nurse gave him a fretful stare. “Boy, it’s time ya’take a rest.”
“It’s getting worse,” he gasped. “I thought last time was bad. . . .” The veins in his hands bulging, he gripped the handrail in the corner of the compartment.
“You’ve endured lots a’ sufferin’. Don’t worry none, we can get ya’ through this.”
“You remember what you promised last time?”
Nurse stuck her nose in the air as if she were sniffing a bad smell. “Sorry, promises ain’t valid when made under duress.”
Sound brought his hand up, palm forward. “I don’t want needles shoved in my lungs again.”
“It bought a year.”
“Yeah, the best year of my life, too.” The wheezing intensified. “But this time . . . is different. This time I’m standing at the door. . . .”
When the elevator doors parted, Nurse’s feet remained glued to the floor. She stared into the open hallway, loathing to leave the elevator. Sound stepped between the door and the wall and swivelled unsteadily on his heels, facing her. He leaned up against the door’s rubber safety rail and said, “I’ve got to go through.” Then he turned and hobbled down the hall.
The old woman shuffled after him, reached out and pulled his slender arm across her stooped shoulder. “It still ain’t fair,” she yapped.
“I knew the risks.”
Nurse inserted the card in the key slot and pushed the door open, still mumbling, “Just ain’t fair–ain’t fair t’ th’ rest a’ us . . .”
Staggering inside, Sound hunched over and crumpled onto the bed, coughing. In truth, it was barely a cough at all–more like a deep-seated hacking, a feeble attempt to clear the fluid building up in his lungs. “The doctor said this would happen,” he whispered. “If it started again . . . they’d fill up fast.”
Nurse propped several pillows up against the headboard and helped Sound get comfortable. A knock came at the door. “‘At’d be Cap’n,” Nurse said as she scurried to answer it.
Cap’n lunged inside and quickly re-bolted the lock. He was breathing hard. “Got cops all over the foyer!”
Nurse shot him a worried glance. “Must a’ found us.”
“Only be a few minutes ‘fore they figure out where we is.”
“This here’s a big hotel, Cap’n. At’s why we chose her.”
The big man plopped down and stared down at the pallid figure on the bed. “Bad, ain’t it?”
Sound picked the remote up off the nightstand and pressed the top button. The hotel viewing menu came up on the television, along with a display of the time. “His plane ought to be landing any minute,” he croaked.
“T’hell with the plane,” Cap’n groused. “You’s sick again, ain’t ya’?”
His breathing labored and shallow, Sound coughed again, a puny puff of air that was almost silent. “You finish your . . . mission, Cap’n. . . . I’ll be fine.”
Cap’n dropped to his knees and half crawled across the floor. “Your lungs ‘r fillin’ up again, ain’t they?”
Four slim fingers and a skeletal thumb came to rest on the big man’s meaty hand, which sagged lifelessly on the bed. “We’ve had some good times . . . haven’t we? . . .” Sound paused between breaths. “We’ve seen . . . some awesome battles, Cap’n.”
“Ain’t over,” called out the ex-soldier, as if he could command health and spirit and vitality back into the gaunt body. “They ain’t over. . . . Nurse, do somethin’.” He peered over at his wise old friend, alligator tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Ya’ want him t’ be more comfortable, ya’ can help him t’ his feet,” said Nurse. “Gets th’ lungs cleared out.”
Cap’n stood up and bent to gently lift the bony body up. Sound groaned with pain when Cap’n reached around his rib cage and brought him to his feet, face to face, supporting his weight on his thick chest. “You been hurt?” Cap’n demanded. “Somebody hurt you, Sound? I’ll string ‘em up by the yardarm!”
Sound slouched up against Cap’n, his arms sticking out at his side, a veritable stick of a scarecrow. With his torso stretched, Sound breathed a bit easer. “I just banged my ribs a bit. . . .” The color slowly began to return to Sound’s flaxen face. “That feels better, Cap’n. . . . Thank you.”
Cap’n’s slick head wrinkled in thought. “You two was talkin’‘bout it this mornin’, wasn’t you? Didn’t want me to know. . . . Why?” Afragile hush fell over the room. A watery substance from Sound’s nose and eyes had begun to trickle down, saturating both men’s shirts.
Nurse clambered up onto the bed to wrap her arms around her ‘boys,’ her skinny arms pinning their heads to her breast. “Just didn’t want ya’ fussin’, ’s all,”
Cap’n looked up at Nurse, terror etched in his eyes. “You’re lyin’. It was me that did it, wasn’t it? When I gave him the elbow th’ other day. I banged him up real good, didn’t I?” Still propping up his best buddy, he broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. “I done killed you. . . .”
Sound patted his friend’s back. “It’s okay, Cap’n. It could have been anything. . . . Now you’ve got to stop shaking me, or put me back down.”
Cap’n sucked in a bottomless breath and reined in the sobs, the tears still melting down his big, black face. Then this powerful man, whose arms had crushed the life right out of one man and rendered another helpless, stood stock-still, his vice-like arms lovingly encircled about a third man in the futile hope of adding hours to his life, even while his heart was breaking.
Barnes’s juggling act was not going too well. Besides not being that popular of an attraction on the Vegas stage show circuit, juggling four balls at once was not his forte. That would be electronic surveillance. Anyway, now he was enmeshed in trying to run a manhunt, managing an undercover operation, keeping a continual watch on four or five different individuals, and seeking a way to release Stephanie from protective custody, all at the same time.
Meanwhile, the mother-to-be was contemplating how best to approach the upcoming visit from her own mother. Slumped in the waiting room, she wrestled with her latest decision. She would reach out to hug her mother . . . or maybe not. Perhaps the cold-shoulder treatment would be more effective. What she really wanted to do was greet her with a hard slap in the kisser. The rejection she felt three years before had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to deal with.
Her mind harkened back to the last time she saw her parents. Her father had been furious. She didn’t want his money, his car, his home, his prominence. She didn’t want anything from him, except his love and blessing– which he refused to give. He’d stormed about the four-car garage as she loaded the last of her things in the little car, a gift from Mitch, one of pure love, no strings attached. That was when her father had jumped into his Mercedes and squealed off down the street. Before punching the gas, he’d rolled down his window and sneered, “Don’t you come crawling back when things don’t work out with your gigolo boyfriend.”
The bitter words had cut deep. She’d looked to her mother, standing in the door leading to the kitchen, for support, to come to her rescue–if not directly, at least a token gesture of encouragement, some bit of comfort. But there was none. She had just stood there without the slightest evidence of sympathy or understanding, too afraid of her husband, too controlled by him.
Since that day, there had been no contact of any kind. No calls, no apologies, nothing to suggest they felt any differently. Her father, with all his power and notoriety, could have found them in a heartbeat. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t admit to being wrong. He couldn’t stand the thought that she’d chosen to live without the wealth and comforts he could offer. Now, just like that, he’d sent a message. Was it a genuine attempt at reconciliation? Or was it to flaunt their emotional distance at her?
At the ring of the elevator bell Stephanie looked up, as she had done the previous ten times it had sounded. The doors parted and a very attractive, fashionably dressed woman stepped from the lift, alone. Red nails and matching red lipstick augmented her flawless white skin. Stephanie studied the anticipation and angst garnishing her mothers face as her eyes darted about the room. At last they locked onto her daughter, who struggled up from the armchair.
The reticence was but momentary. The older woman contemplated Stephanie’s maternal state, then–any lingering apprehension evaporating into the cosmos–she dropped her handbag on the floor and rushed over to an embrace she’d been without far too long. Nearly a bucketful of tears followed before it occurred to the grandmother-to-be, wholly and inexorably, that she loved her daughter with a limitless, never-ending, unconditional love.
A plastic-coated transmitter the size of a dime had been stitched into Ritter’s belt. Immune to any means of conventional bug detection, it was the FBI’s way of tracking their key informant’s movements.
Ritter-the-snitch received from Barnes his last-minute pep-talk. “We’ve pulled out the team monitoring Vinnie’s activities,” he was informed. “We’ll be following you from a distance. If we’re able to predict where you’re headed, we’ll put in place a team out front as well.”
Ritter reiterated his intention to keep his ace firmly tucked up his sleeve. “Now don’t go tryin’ t’ figure out all my secrets, mate. I ain’t goin’ t’ tell ya’ nothin’‘til my money’s secure. If you knew everything I knew, you wouldn’t bloody need me no more, would you? And then I wouldn’t get paid the fifty-grand and live like a king in me homeland, would I?”
Barnes hustled his snitch toward the office door. “Where’d you put the plane ticket?”
“Left it in the Reverend’s care t’make sure you keep your word. Don’t want no double-cross in’goin’ on now, do we? Wouldn’t want the U.S. Federal Government takin’ advantage a’ no homeless redcoat.”
“The contract says the body and the gun.”
“I knows what the bloomin’ contract says. You’ll get ‘em both–I guarantee it. You just keep your word. I’ll be givin’ ya’ more than ya’ ever dreamed ‘fore the night’s over. You just wait an’ see.”
“No funny business, Ritter,” Barnes threatened.
“‘Course not. Ain’t nothin’ funny ‘bout it, mate. Nothin’ funny at all.”
The papers properly signed and notarized, Ritter was released into the hands of Vinnie’s attorney. Spread out over a three-block distance, the four-car team picked up the first of its signals from Ritter’s belt.