Gagliano,Anthony - Straits of Fortune.wps (17 page)

the waist. Maybe the gun would take up the slack. I noticed a brush on the dresser and went over and had just begun brushing my hair with it when I glanced down at the framed photos I'd seen before. There was one of Susan with her parents. It was in a gold frame, and she looked about five years old; a few more with an older boy who looked like her brother. There was one of her in a white cheerleader's outfit complete with pom- poms and a fresh-faced, sun-soaked beauty that even when you're lucky enough to be born to it only visits for a while. There was another photo of her in cap and gown in front of a stately looking building with ivy clinging to its walls, her parents beaming proudly on either side of her. They were nice pictures, and they took some of the cold- ness out of the room, and I was just scanning them when my eyes froze on a framed photo hanging on the wall in an array that included her diplomas from college and law school. It was a group photo taken at some kind of presen- tation or awards ceremony. The people in it were standing behind a table stacked with what appeared to be packages of heroin or cocaine--your standard big-bust photo. There were seven people in the shot besides Susan. One I recog- nized as the former chief of police of Miami-Dade County, now retired. Another was of the mayor. There were three others: two women and a man. I glanced casually at their grinning faces. Then something registered, and I scanned backward. The hand doing the brushing stopped in midair. I set the brush down and eased the picture frame off its mounting to get a better look at it. There was no mistake. I was just about to replace it when I felt a presence behind me. "What are you staring at?" Susan asked. "I was just checking out the photo. Hope you don't mind," I said. My hands were trembling. 144

"That's from when we busted the Falcone brothers," Susan said. "You remember them, don't you?" "Big-time coke dealers," I said, my eyes still riveted on the man at the far right of the photo. "I remember. They got deported to Colombia, didn't they?" "That's right. Then they mysteriously escaped and went back into business again, bigger and better than ever." I was biding my time. I didn't want to make her suspicious. I pointed at the last man in the photo, the man I'd seen before but whom no one would ever see again. The other dead man on the white yacht. "Who's this guy?" I asked nonchalantly. "Why? You know him?" "I don't know. I might have seen him somewhere." "His name is Duncan. Harry Duncan. He's with the DEA." "The DEA?" I asked. "Worked undercover. He asked me out once, but there was something about him I didn't like. What's wrong? You know him from someplace?" "No, he just looks familiar, that's all." She must have noticed something odd in my expression. I had a hard time looking her in the eye, but with a woman, avoiding that is the worst thing you can do. Ten years of listening to liars had sharpened her senses to an unpleasant acuteness. "What are you not telling me, Jack?" "Quite a bit. Anyway, I think I should be leaving now. I've been too much trouble already." "You should have thought of that before you got here," she said. "All right, but before I go, how about one last request?" "Such as?" 145

"You wouldn't happen to have an extra banana lying around, would you?" I asked. "I haven't eaten much lately." "There's a Denny's two blocks south of here," she said sternly. "Thanks." I walked into the living room, retrieved the .45 from the coffee table, tucked it under the waistband of my borrowed trousers, and started for the door. I felt old, tired, and evicted. The thought occurred to me that I should just turn myself in and get it over with, that in my present condition a quiet jail cell would seem like a retreat. I walked very slowly toward the front door. I was not sure that I could face what was on the other side of it. "Hey, you!" Susan yelled from behind me. "Come back here." "What's the matter?" "Go sit in the living room," she commanded. "I'll make you a sandwich. Tuna fish. It's all I've got." "Thanks." I went into the living room and sat on the couch, as thank- ful for the brief reprieve as the condemned man who gets the governor's call at the last minute. From the kitchen came the sounds of cupboards opening and closing and then the muted whir of an electric can opener going to work. I glanced down at the coffee table, my eyes skimming over the magazine covers. There were three ancient issues of People and a copy of Time. There was also a copy of the Miami Herald. It was two days old, but as I hadn't done much reading lately, I picked it up and began flipping idly through the pages. I couldn't really concentrate. A few lines here and there. Then, on page eight, something caught my eye, and just like that I was all bright light and deadly focus. It was a story about the Colonel. 146

"I don't have any mayonnaise!" Susan shouted from the kitchen. "Is mustard okay?" "Fine, that's fine," I shouted back. I read slowly, taking it all in. "What kind of bread?" Susan yelled. "Stale white or stale wheat?" "Either one is fine!" I said, not paying attention. It seemed that Pellucid Labs, the Colonel's company, was in mucho trouble, to say the least, and was under investigation by several federal agencies, including the FDA, the DEA, and, worst of all, the IRS. Someone had altered the results of the clinical trials of certain "promising" antidepressants in order to win FDA approval. The actual results, uncovered with the help of a former researcher now turned whistle-blower, were that the drugs in question produced various "undesirable side effects," contradicting the findings of the researchers cited in Pellucid Labs' initial reports. The company had also filed for bankruptcy and was seeking additional financing from an undisclosed consortium of venture capitalists who them- selves were the subject of a government probe into allegations concerning the illegal transfer of funds from Pellucid's ac- counts into offshore banks in the Cayman Islands. There were two interspersed paragraphs describing Pat- terson's military and scientific careers by way of counter- point: the Rhodes Scholarship, West Point, Vietnam and his heroism during the Tet Offensive back in '68. There was mention of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star he had won. Despite my having known him, it was hard not to envy his biography. In an age of myopic specialization, the Colonel had been a Renaissance man. He had walked out of obscurity with nothing but brains and a set of balls and had become a war hero and a millionaire. The gist and tone of the article were all too familiar: Someone who had achieved everything was on the verge of losing it all--another reas- 147

suring message for the mediocre who had never dared to reach beyond the meager possibilities of the next paycheck and a sure pension. Back in your place, Colonel Patterson. Who in the hell did you think you were? In the end, despite your genius (which, by the way, we always hated you for, even while we were applauding you), you turned out to be just another liar and another fraud, and we'll all sleep the better for having known it. I finished the article and refolded the newspaper--slowly, as though it were a Christmas present opened prematurely. My head was so crowded with facts it felt like a holding cell after a riot. I closed my eyes and tried to think, but then my stomach grumbled and once again the only thing that made any sense was stale bread, tuna fish, and mustard. All the rest was babel. All the rest, including Pellucid Labs, could wait. Then the doorbell rang. I turned around. Susan was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Are you expecting someone?" I asked. "Not at this hour," she said, frowning. She swept past me and opened the peephole. "Who is it?" she demanded. By that time I was standing beside the door with my back against the wall. "Susan Andrews? Agent Hackbart, FBI. Please, this will only take a moment." Susan glanced at me angrily. All I could do was shrug my shoulders. "FBI?" Susan said. "What is it you want?" "Please, Miss Andrews. It won't take long." She glanced again at me. "I've got company," she said to the door. "Come back tomorrow." I gave her the thumbs-up, but the hand it was attached to was trembling again. 148

The voice on the other side of the door sounded very solemn and full of foreboding. "We're not going away, Miss Andrews. We'll stay here all night if we have to. Let us in and we'll be gone in twenty minutes." "Tell him to hold on," I whispered. Susan leaned closer. "What are you going to do?" "Hide the gun. Tell them to wait." I ran back into the bedroom and stuffed the gun under one of the pillows on the bed. Then I came back into the living room, sat myself down on the sofa, crossed my legs, and tried to look like Cary Grant, as Cal had once suggested. We were six stories up, and I couldn't fly. The only thing I could do was look nonchalant and hope that they didn't recognize me. It was impossible to say what the odds of that were. I nodded at Susan, and she opened the door. My heart was doing its best to nail my back to the sofa. The door swung in as Susan stepped back, and I was looking at three men in three dark suits. Three pairs of eyes found me at the same moment, froze for an instant, then fanned the room before returning to me. I sensed confusion and even disappointment, but there was no recognition in the way they looked at me. Even so, it was a moment before they took their eyes from mine, and all the while I sat there with my leg crossed over my knee with my arm extended along the back of the couch. I waited until they holstered their guns before I moved, and then it was only to sit forward with both feet on the floor. "What's this about?" Susan asked. "Don't you know what time it is?" Two of them were rookies, both in their late twenties. One was black, and one was white, but the academy at Quantico had somehow made them into twins. I wasn't worried about either of them, but the older man in the middle was some- thing else. He was about fifty, the shortest of the three, and 149

the first thing you would think when you saw him was that he was a cop. He had the permanent tan and seared-looking skin of a sailor in the tropics, or maybe of a tennis nut who plays long sets in the middle of the day. His brown hair was fading to gray, and he had a slight stoop, as though he'd spent a lifetime looking under things. It was his eyes, however, that gave him away, and he knew how to use them. He was using them on me now, gauging my reaction to his scrutiny. I had seen a lot of eyes like that when I was on the force in New York, especially among the homicide detectives. They were the kind of eyes that would remember you. "I'm sorry, Miss Andrews," he said, "but this is important." "In that case let me see some ID, gentlemen." Hackbart glanced at me, but nothing in his eyes regis- tered recognition. I met his gaze and held it, the way you do when you've got nothing to hide. The three of them fished out their wallets, but I knew they were legit. Susan was just buying time. Susan studied their badges. Hackbart smiled at me. It was the phoniest smile I had ever seen. "I see you have a guest after all," Hackbart said. I stood up as they approached me, and I shook hands with all of them. It was clear that they didn't know quite what to make of me. Hackbart was still doing his staring routine, trying to see if I had any reason to be nervous. I smiled back at him. "Are you guys really FBI?" I asked with false eager- ness. No matter how dour and professional cops may like to appear, they love it when you act impressed by them. The rookies did their best to hide their smiles. Hackbart frowned, but at least now I had him thinking I was a simpleton, which is generally a good thing to do when you're talking to the police. It relaxes them. 150

"I'm sorry," Hackbart said. "I didn't catch your name." "Jack Vaughn," I said, hoping that my name--at least as of yet--would mean nothing to him. "I see. You're . . ." "A friend. I just flew in from Rochester this afternoon. I didn't think Sue would call the FBI on me so soon though." I glanced over at Susan and grinned. "Say, you guys want a beer?" Hackbart looked at me with an expression that was nearly sympathetic. "None for me," he said. I had succeeded in diluting his suspicions. He turned back to Susan. "May I sit down?" he asked. "Of course." Hackbart told his men to wait downstairs. After they left, he sat in one of the wicker chairs that flanked the coffee table. "Would that be Rochester, New York?" he asked. "No, sir, Rochester, Minnesota. You know, where the clinic is." "Clinic?" "Sure, the Mayo Clinic." Susan came back and sat in the other wicker chair. Hack- bart wanted me out of there, but he couldn't think of a polite way to say so. He scanned my face as though trying to assess the exact degree of my stupidity, whether I in any way posed a risk to his investigation. Then he turned his attention back to Susan. "You know a DEA agent named Harry Duncan?" Hack- bart asked. Susan almost glanced at me then but caught herself just in time. Still, I think Hackbart sensed something. He gave me the stare treatment again. I pretended not to notice. "We worked together when I was with the D.A.'s office," Susan told him. "What of it?" 151

"When was the last time you saw him?" Hackbart asked. "That's not exactly an answer to my question." Hackbart smiled. "I forgot. You're an attorney. You're the one who gets to ask all the questions, right? Okay, Duncan's under investigation. Your name was in his Rolodex. He also sent you a half dozen or so e-mails asking you for a date. As far as we could tell from your replies, that never happened, but even so, we need to check you out. You understand that, don't you?" Susan took a chocolate from a box on the table and began to unwrap it. She looked over the nougat, then popped it into her mouth. She was still buying time, trying to get it together. "You must have seized his computer to know all this," she said. "What kind of investigation are we talking about here?" Hackbart didn't answer. He was back to giving me the once-over. The best cops are nearly psychic in their ability to catch even the slightest fluctuation in a person's demeanor, and unfortunately for me, Hackbart was of them. "May I ask how long you'll be in Miami, Mr. Vaughn?" Hackbart asked. "I head down to the Keys tomorrow. Gonna do a little snorkeling, a little fishing. Then I'm off to Costa Rica for some windsurfing." "I see," he said. "You understand that everything you hear tonight is confidential? Otherwise I'll have to ask you to leave." "Look, Hackbart," Susan said, "you can't come into my house and tell anybody what to do. Understand? You want to talk to me alone? Fine. I'll come by the Bureau tomorrow. I know where it is. If you don't know where Duncan is, then neither do I. In which case neither of us is of any use to the other. Now if you have something to ask, ask, but don't be rude to my friends." 152