A Shared Confidence (26 page)

I was pushed roughly down into the chair on the other side of the desk.

“You know a guy named Antonio Verdi?” Giarelli spat out sharply.

“The name's not familiar,” I answered nervously. Jesus, how had Giarelli managed to find out this much in just a matter of hours?

“Big, heavyset guy,” Giarelli prodded. “Showed up in town maybe two weeks ago. Staying at the Lord Baltimore Hotel on the sixth floor. You sure you never heard of him?”

I shook my head slowly. “I can't place him, no.”

Giarelli opened the desk drawer and pulled out a photograph of Verdi in his cream-colored suit and matching hat, walking through the lobby of the Lord Baltimore.

“This is the guy,” he said. “Take a good look at him, see if you know his face.”

I pretended to study the photo carefully. Of course I knew the man in it, but what was bothering me at the moment was the photo itself. It was a surveillance photograph, taken by a professional. Either a very good private investigator or a cop, and I realized Giarelli had some connections to have gotten hold of this. With the local police? The cops here aren't any more crooked than in places like New York or Chicago, but they aren't any less so.

“You know him or not?” asked Giarelli impatiently.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“What about this guy?”

He tossed another photo onto the desk. Another professional job, this one of Clay Stanton walking down the street. Before I could answer, he placed another photo on top of it. This one of Clay Stanton at an outdoor cafe, having lunch with – my stomach turned to ice – Kelly Shaw.

“What's his name?” Giarelli asked.

“I – I just had lunch with him one time. I'm trying to remember.”

Giarelli nodded to the man on my left, who seized my arm and held my wrist at the edge of the desk, my hand and fingers falling over the edge. His other hand pressed down like an anvil on my elbow. The man in the corner opened a filing cabinet and pulled out a pair of bolt cutters. He walked up to the edge of the desk and started fitting my pinky between the blades.

“Clay Stanton!” I yelled. “His name is Clay Stanton! Jesus!”

“We going to have to do this every time I ask a goddamn question?” Giarelli wanted to know.

I shook my head, my heart hammering. “No.”

The other man backed away and put the bolt cutters on top of the filing cabinet, leaving them in plain sight. The man holding my arm let go and they let me catch my breath for a moment.

“Who is Clay Stanton?”

“He's a con man.”

“Why are you hanging around him?”

“I'm trying to con him.” That seemed to surprise Giarelli.

“Why?”

“He took a client of mine. I'm trying to get his money back for him.”

“You working for the feds?”

“No.”

Giarelli reached across the desk and slapped my face so hard I saw lights for a second.

“I asked if you're working for the feds!”

“I'm a private detective! I'm just here for my client!”

I kept waiting for another barrage of questions or further physical persuasion. I wasn't entirely opposed to telling them the truth if I had to, but part of me was afraid the truth would sound so complicated and screwy they'd never go for it, and I'd spend a long night of suffering before they finally accepted it. There was silence in the room for a couple of minutes, and the man behind me spoke up.

“You want I should bring in the skirt?”

Giarelli thought this over for a moment, then shook his head.

“No,” he said. “We'll take him with us when we go.”

With that, I was yanked back up to my feet, marched out of the office and back over to Penny, then shoved down next to her and tied up again. The two of us were left alone with the pair playing pinochle at the desk while Giarelli and his other men filed out of the warehouse.

“I heard you screaming in there,” Penny said.

“I wasn't screaming, I was yelling.”

“What did they want?”

“Giarelli wanted to know some things.”

“What did you do?”

“I told him some things.”

Eventually the two of us fell asleep against each other. We were rousted in the morning when Giarelli and his men returned. I was brought to my feet and untied, my stiff muscles protesting against the sudden movement. The older man brought over a tray of food and knelt down beside Penny.

“You get to eat later,” Giarelli said to me. “Maybe you do. Let's go.”

I was taken outside, the morning sunlight stabbing my eyes, and placed in the back of the black sedan. We drove across town, the route starting to feel familiar during the last part of the trip. We parked at a hotel that I'd only visited twice before, and I was starting to get a really bad sense of things. I kept thinking back to the surveillance photos Giarelli had shown me a few hours ago, my fears growing quickly inside me. Never tell yourself things can't get any worse, because they always can.

Through the lobby and into a familiar elevator, then down the hall and I already knew where we were going. Without knocking, one of Giarelli's men opened the door and we all entered.

Sitting at a breakfast table, polishing off a meal of poached eggs and toast, sat Joshua Mattling, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Baltimore field office. He looked up from his plate at the array of gangsters, then at his watch.

“You're late,” Mattling told Giarelli.

“I don't punch no government clock, G-man,” Giarelli sneered. “You didn't tell me you hired a dick.”

“I don't tell you a lot of things, Giarelli,” Mattling said, his voice unconcerned. “Get used to it.”

The two men stared each other down for a moment. Whatever their alliance was based on, it wasn't mutual admiration.

“He tell you anything?” Mattling asked.

“I don't know what the hell to ask him!” Giarelli complained. “Anyway, that's your department. Ask him whatever you want. He won't answer, that's what me and my boys are here for.”

Giarelli looked nervously at the door.

“Relax,” Mattling said. “They're all out on various duties right now. No one's going to see you here.”

“No one better,” Giarelli said.

“You think
I
want to be seen with you?” Mattling asked. “We've got a couple hours. Plenty of time.” He looked over at me again. “Sit down, Caine.”

I walked slowly over to the table where Mattling was sitting and took a chair. The scene was surreal. I was tired and stiff from sleeping tied up on burlap sacks, my mind trying to unravel all this. Giarelli didn't have an in with the local police. Oh no, his connections went much higher than that.

“You hungry?” asked Mattling. In fact, I was, but I didn't feel like eating just then.

“I guess you found Casper Giarelli,” I said.

“I guess I did, Caine.”

I
've had some tense mornings
– afternoons and evenings as well, for that matter – but this one took the cake. After setting up a stooge to play a Chicago mobster in the hopes of conning a confidence man, my worst fear had been realized: the real mobster had shown up. The truly bad news, though, was worse than my worst fear, for the simple reason that I never could have imagined such an awful possibility: the real Giarelli was in cahoots with the head of the F.B.I.'s Baltimore field office. And these people had Penny Sills tied up in a warehouse. Well, they knew about me and they knew about Penny. What more could I keep them from finding out?

Mattling sat back from his breakfast, added a dollop of cream to his coffee cup, took a sip, and gave me a cool appraisal.

“Given any more thought to coming on board with the Bureau, Caine?” he asked. “It's still not too late. Could always use a man like you. And as I expect you figured out by now, there are fringe benefits that go a bit beyond a government pension.”

I couldn't believe I was hearing any of this. You work in a trade like mine, you think of yourself as jaded, as having seen it all. But you can still be shocked. I knew there were crooked cops. I supposed it stood to reason there might be a few crooked G-men around as well. But the head agent of a field office in a major city? Not just taking the occasional bribe but working hand-in-glove with a ranking mafia member? I thought of all the times I'd read quotes from Hoover bragging about the incorruptibility of the men under him. He should be here now, I thought. Instead of me.

“Hell,” Mattling continued, “if you don't want to go federal maybe Giarelli has a spot for a man like you.”

Giarelli looked up from filing his nails with a pocketknife.

“You any good with the iron, Caine?” he asked.

“Not really,” I answered, not quite truthfully.

“Too bad.”

“Where's Stanton right now?” Mattling asked.

“Last I saw him, he was in my suite at the Lord Baltimore Hotel.”

“How long ago was this?”

I looked at my watch. “Well, let's see, your boss picked me up about ten hours ago, so–”

The crockery shook and rattled as Mattling slammed the flat of his hand against the tablecloth.

“Get this straight, Caine: Giarelli is not my boss.”

“I'm sorry,” I said easily, looking over at Giarelli. “I guess Agent Mattling is calling
your
tune then?”

Giarelli continued filing his nails, not so much as looking up at me.

“Caine,” Mattling said wearily, “if you don't have anything better up your sleeve than Divide and Conquer, you better just give up now.”

“I thought I already had. Given up that is. What do you want from me?”

“Some answers,” Mattling said.

“Then I'll need some questions first.”

“Don't play games with me, Caine.”

I stood up suddenly from the table, throwing my hands in the air, then lowering them slowly to my sides as I saw Giarelli's goons move in.

“Answers to what, Mattling? Jesus Christ, you told me you were here after Giarelli, that you didn't give a hang for one dime-a-dozen confidence man. Now I find out you and Giarelli are cozied up together, have been for awhile I guess. Okay, so you're not after Giarelli. What are you after? What are you trying to find out? If I had some clue, maybe I could help you out.”

“Sit down, Caine,” Mattling said.

I sat down slowly.

“Any of that coffee left?” I asked, glancing at the pitcher on the table.

“Help yourself. Cream?”

“Black is fine,” I said, pouring myself a cup. “Mind if I have a cigarette?”

“Fire away.”

I bought myself a couple more minutes, but wasn't closer to any kind of understanding here.

I put my lighter away (why hadn't they taken it from me earlier?), exhaled a stream of smoke, took a sip of coffee, and asked Mattling: “What do you want to know?”

The next hour was pretty bizarre. Mattling asked all kinds of questions and I answered as best I could. None of the questions seemed to go together. How much money had I handed over to Stanton so far? How much had I taken off him? When and where did I recruit Penny Sills? Where did I get the suit I was wearing? The silver from the bank in Delaware, what was that for exactly? Why had I broken Thaddeus Straker's jaw six years ago? Who made up Kelly Shaw's driver's license for me? Was it the same guy who made up the phony cashier's checks?

In some ways, it was a standard police grilling, Mattling throwing out anything and everything he could think to ask, hoping in the confusion I wouldn't figure out what he was really after. I gave a lot of fairly honest answers, figuring Mattling knew most of it by now anyway. I only hedged on anything that could lead Mattling back to Ferrier, the forger who'd not only done work for me but had altered loan documents from my brother's bank. Nathan had to be kept out of this at all costs. Sorry, fellows, can't help you there. I scouted around, found one guy who led me to another guy who led me to another guy, no names anywhere along the way. Back alley swap at midnight, cash for the documents I wanted.

I may have received a slap or two from one of Giarelli's goons, mostly for smarting off because I was tired and cranky, but there were no bolt cutters, no threats of something worse. Scowls and occasional yelling, yes, but I wasn't given any kind of “treatment”. I kept waiting for a stiletto or a set of brass knuckles to come out of a pocket but it never happened. Giarelli and his men were here to make sure I cooperated, but apart from general verbal abuse…nothing. Not that I was complaining, mind you, but it seemed damned strange.

“And you don't know,” Mattling asked for the tenth time, “where your boy Jennings and Ryland and the rest of them are?”

I shook my head. “That was the arrangement. In case I got picked up by, well, by the real Giarelli.” I glanced over at the mafioso, who showed no reaction. “They were supposed to call me at my suite once they settled in and were ready to meet up.”

Mattling looked at Giarelli and back to me.

“I've had a man at your suite since two o'clock this morning,” he said. “The phone hasn't rung once.”

“I don't know what to tell you, then. Maybe something happened to them.”

Again I waited for someone to put a blade to my eye or start taking fingers. Nothing.

The contents of my pockets were scattered across the table. For the fifth time, Mattling picked up the cashier's checks that Stanton had cashed in Delaware, the ones Penny's shill had slipped back to me before Stanton and I left. Again, Mattling examined it front and back.

“These other cashier's checks you mentioned,” said Mattling, “you had Stanton cash two others besides these, and there are two left, right?”

“That's right. Only the first two were real,” I reminded him.

“And you put these other two checks on the desk of your suite, in plain view of Stanton?”

“Just like I told you.”

“Hoping he'd snatch them before he left?”

“That was my plan, yes.”

Mattling sat back in his chair and took a sip of coffee.

“So why hasn't he yet?”

“I don't know!” I practically yelled at him. “You're asking me questions about what's going on out there in the world when I've spent the last twelve hours tied up in a warehouse or sitting here answering your questions. What the hell do I know what's going on out there? Who's doing what or who's not doing what? Why somebody else is or isn't doing something?”

Mattling stared at me hard for a few seconds. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. This is it, I thought. Now out come the thumbscrews.

The telephone rang. Mattling got up from the table and answered it.

“Mattling,” he said flatly. “Which bank? You got a witness? You have custody of him now, right? No, no lawyers. I don't care what he has to say about it, no lawyers. Not yet anyway. Get the rest of the men ready, we'll move on the brokerage firm at two p.m. sharp. Right, stay by the phone.”

He hung up the phone and turned to me.

“You can go now, Mr. Caine.” Mattling put his palms on his lower back and stretched till his spine crackled. “Guess you'll be wanting your gun back.”

At a nod from Mattling, one of Giarelli's goons stepped forward, fished out my Colt, and laid it on the breakfast table. I stared at it dumbly. Now what the hell…?

There are moments when life turns on a dime, and no matter how many of them you see in your life, you can never prepare for them. It's the very nature of such moments. For the second time since last night, the floor fell out from under me in the space between heartbeats. It was the simplest of exchanges, something as subtle as a tone of voice.

Mattling looked over at Giarelli and said matter-of-factly:

“We've got him. Good work, D'Amato. You and your men go home and get some shut-eye. The rest of us can take it from here.”

Giarelli's whole demeanor had shifted. He looked at Mattling with a respectful defiance.

“Nothing doing, Chief,” he said. “Me and my men will see this thing through.”

“Well, if you're sure you're up for it…”

And the Chicago mobster's face split into a sunlit smile that you just don't see in that type. “Wouldn't miss it for the world, sir.”

“Fine,” Mattling said. “Go get ready. Be outside the brokerage office at ten till two.”

“Right.” And with that, the gangster who I was certain meant to kill me left the room, followed by his men.

I sat there in the chair, my tired and frazzled mind trying to make sense of all this.

“I'm sorry about all this, Mr. Caine,” Mattling offered. “There really was no other way. I'll explain it to you later, but right now I'm a little pressed for time. Can I offer you a lift back to your hotel?”

Half an
hour later, Special Agent D'Amato of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was driving me in my hired Cadillac up to the entrance of the Lord Baltimore Hotel. We climbed out and he tipped the kid out front to park the car.

“Hope there aren't any hard feelings, Mr. Caine,” he said, smiling that country boy grin of his, and it was impossible to imagine that this was the same, scar-faced gangster who'd threatened to cut off my fingers a few hours ago. “You want to take a sock at me? I figure you got one coming.” He even thrust out his jaw. I just stared at him, still dazed from it all.

“I'm too tired,” I mumbled. “Maybe tomorrow.”

I went in through the lobby and up in the elevator to my suite. I was beyond surprise at this point. Opening the door and finding Penny Sills sitting up in my bed waiting for me in a flimsy negligee might have given me a jolt at any other time. I just threw a tired wave. She jumped out of the bed and ran up to me, throwing her arms around me.

“Dev, you poor baby. Did those mean F.B.I. men give you a hard time?”

“You knew about all this?” I asked.

“Nope. I was as taken in as you until after they took you away to see Mattling. Then the two guys they left behind explained it all to me and told me they'd take me wherever I wanted to go. I wanted to come here.”

“So you understand it all?”

She smiled brightly. “Not one damn bit of it. You?”

I shook my head. “I gather they have Stanton in custody. Other than that…” I'd already been in contact with Jennings, told him everything was fine, to sit tight until I called again.

“Hey, I got an idea,” Penny said. “Why don't we worry about all this baloney later? Let's worry about something else right now.” She led me back to the bed and I climbed onto it, not even bothering to undress. The strap of Penny's negligee fell off one shoulder and her eyes were green again, and it was the perfect time to forget all this craziness and lose myself in a few pleasant hours.

That's what your legendary lovers do, I guess. Me, I put my head on the pillow next to her and fell into a dead sleep for the next several hours.

Around eleven
a.m. the next morning I was shaved and dressed and sitting in Agent Mattling's office at the F.B.I. field office downtown, getting the rest of the story. And what a story it was.

Stanton had swiped the last two cashier's checks from my suite at the Lord Baltimore as I'd known he would. Mattling and his men had every bank in Baltimore on the alert; Stanton was nailed the minute he tried to cash them.

“Wasn't that the plan already?” I asked, a bit testily. “What was the point of picking Penny and me up? Making us think a gangster was kidnapping us?”

“Yeah, that,” Mattling rubbed a hand over his jaw. “We knew you'd visited the bank in Delaware, and we waited for you to finish your play with Stanton back at the Lord Baltimore. But after that, when you didn't come straight to us but went back to your other hotel, we weren't sure what was going on. We had a quick conference,” he explained. “Thought it might be a good idea to keep you on ice until we had Stanton.”

“You couldn't have just explained this all to me?” I was remembering an uncomfortable night of burlap sacks and bolt cutters.

“We had no legal right to hold you,” Mattling told me. “There was a chance you might have walked and we couldn't have stopped you.”

“And you thought I'd walk right up to Stanton and tip him off?”

“We didn't know what your plans were, Mr. Caine. We've been watching you and, well, the truth is, you're a difficult man to predict. We didn't want to take any chances.”

I put this aside for the moment and listened to the rest of the story. The main component was this: the real Casper Giarelli never made it out of Chicago. He'd gotten as far as the train station and been rubbed out by some hit man from a rival mob. The Chicago F.B.I., at Mattling's request, had pulled some strings with the local press and kept it out of the papers so far.