The Sentry (25 page)

Tobey murmured, “Mellow out, Daniel.”

Cleo cooed, “Easy, dude, easy.”

The limo backed out of the drive, then rolled up to Sunset.

“Easy, my ass! What about the cop? What if he bags the limo?”

Tobey said, “Let’m. He’s after the Mexican.”

Cleo said, “Take the waitress, Daniel. We’ll figure it out, out.”

Daniel felt as if his arms and legs were being yanked off at the joints, the cook ripping him in one direction, the waitress ripping him in another, but the voices were soothing. The voices helped him think.

Tobey whispered, “The waitress is here, get the waitress.”

Cleo hissed, “The waitress will give you the cook.”

Daniel knew they were right. He watched the limo disappear as it turned onto Sunset.

First he would take the waitress, then he would get the cook, and then he would have everything.

Cole wedged his phone under his ear, trying to reconcile what Pike was telling him. It felt as if Pike was describing one reality while Cole had been working to understand another.

“What you’re telling me is these people are not being treated like prisoners.”

“Four guards were outside the house, and at least two more were inside. You put guards on the outside, you’re not keeping someone in, you’re keeping someone out.”

“I don’t get it. How did a
Trece
crew go from shaking down Smith to being his host in three days?”

Pike didn’t respond.

Cole said, “Feel free not to answer.”

“The way they were shaking hands tells me it’s business. The private jet tells me it’s big business.”

“You get the tail number?”

Cole copied the number as Pike recited it.

“Okay. I’ll try to find out who owns it. Where are you going?”

“Back to Azzara’s.”

“Come here first. I want to go with you.”

Cole thought for a moment, trying to sort out the new facts.

“Someone is hunting these people. We know that for sure. We thought it was Mendoza and Gomer, but it wasn’t, and now Miguel Azzara is their best friend.”

“Yes.”

“Protecting them?”

“You go into business with people, you take care of them.”

“I can’t help wondering why a
Trece
street gang and Mexican cowboys with their own jet need to be in business with a man who fries oysters.”

“I’ll be there soon. We’ll find out.”

Cole spent the next ten minutes trying to identify the owners of Citation Jet XB-CCL, but had no luck. He was still on hold with the FAA when his call waiting told him Lucy Chenier was calling. He dropped the FAA and took Lucy’s call.

Her voice was in full-on professional mode.

“Can you talk?”

“Absolutely. What did you find out?”

“I’m going to put you on speaker. Terry’s here.”

The sound qual ity went from crisp to hollow when she put him on speaker.

“Hey, Terry. Thanks for helping on this.”

“Hey, man, no problem. You hear me okay?”

“Hear you fine.”

Terry had a mellow voice with a woodsy Louisiana accent. He’d grown up in a family of police officers, and had been an officer himself before retiring to work as an investigator for Lucy’s firm.

Lucy said, “So you know, we’re in my office and we’re alone. No one can hear what we say except you, me, and Terry.”

“Okay.”

“Are you by yourself?”

“Yeah. It’s just us.”

“Joe isn’t there?”

“Not yet. He’s on his way.”

Cole wondered why she was being so legal.

“Okay. I’m emailing two pictures. Are you at your computer?”

“Will be. I’m going there now.”

“Tell me if they’re the people you know as Dru Rayne and Wilson Smith.”

Her email was waiting when Cole reached his computer.

“Hang on. I’m opening it.”

Cole wasn’t surprised when the picture of Wilson Smith turned out to be a booking photo, but still felt a vague disappointment. The picture of Dru Rayne was a snapshot, showing her behind a bar, with her hair up, a crooked smile, and rainbows of cheap bracelets on her wrists. She was wearing a tight black T-shirt that read:
Tip the Waitress or She’ll Spit in Your Drink
.

“Yeah. This is them.”

Terry came back sounding pleased.

“Damn, boy.”

Lucy said, “What we’re about to tell you comes from a senior investigator with the Louisiana DOJ. Remember what I said about not being able to put the genie back in the bottle?”

“Are they going to call me?”

Terry spoke up again.

“He pressed me, buddy. I didn’t give him your name or location, but five will get you six he’s on the phone with the FBI. They’re tracking a string of murders tied to this case, and the number is growing.”

Cole felt a leaden I-knew-this-would-get-worse feeling as he stared at Smith’s mug shot.

“Smith’s a murderer?”

“Yeah, he probably is, but I’m not talking about him. At least eight and possibly nine murders have been committed by a person or persons trying to find the man you know as Wilson Smith.”

Cole felt a cold tingle in the center of his chest. Pike was right—something way more dangerous than street-corner bangers had been in the Venice Canals.

“He found them. He’s here.”

Lucy and Terry spoke over each other, garbling each other’s words before Lucy won out.

“How do you know he’s found them?”

Cole told them about Mendoza and Gomer.

“We’re not sure why they were watching the house, but they were found murdered the next morning. Joe believes they were murdered by someone who’s looking for Wilson and Dru.”

Terry’s low voice was directed to Lucy.

“This isn’t good. If this is the guy, we need to put our folks down here on his trail while it’s hot.”

“Elvis and I understand that, Terry. Tell him about Rainey.”

Cole thought he heard Terry take a breath, almost as if he was trying to regain composure before he could get back to the business at hand.

“Smith’s real name is William Allan Rainey. He smuggled cash out of the country for some boys down here hooked up with a Bolivian cartel. My guy says, all told, he probably transported six or seven hundred million dollars before he was done.”

“Drug money?”

“Where else you gonna see that kind of cash?”

Drugs were a cash business, and the problem for foreign drug suppliers was getting their cash out of the country. Experienced cops had told him it was far easier for suppliers to get their drugs in than to get their cash out. They couldn’t deposit it in banks or transfer it in meaningful amounts because banks were watched by the government, and transferring a few thousand here and there was useless to an organization that generated hundreds of millions in cash.

Cole said, “Smuggling cash doesn’t rate a sealed file.”

“That was the DEA. They broke him, then cut a deal with him for info about the cartel’s business.”

“He was an informant.”

“Yeah, for a couple of years, and maybe that’s why he did what he did. Rainey and the woman disappeared two weeks before Katrina with twelve million dollars of Bolivian money. They’ve been on the run ever since.”

Cole leaned back.

“Twelve million. Get out.”

Lucy said, “Cash.”

“The cartel boys put a million dollar reward on Rainey’s head and sent up a specialist to find him.”

“Specialist as in a killer?”

“Specialist as in finding people the Bolivians want found, and doing whatever it is they want done. Over at the DOJ, they called him the executioner. That’s who you have runnin’ around out there.”

Cole felt a second chill, and listened as Terry continued.

According to Terry’s contact, William Allan Rainey had spent his life jumping between small-time criminal activity and questionable business ventures. Rainey opened several restaurants and bars that failed, but eventually created a stable business for himself as a wholesale seafood supplier, buying shrimp and fish from local fishermen to sell to other people’s restaurants. The fishermen Rainey dealt with were one-boat operators who fished the Gulf from pinprick towns in the bayous along the Louisiana coast. Investigators believed it was during this period that Rainey became involved with people who were in business with the Bolivian cartel, and Rainey, who had always been attracted to easy money, saw a way to cut himself in on the partnership. The Bolivians needed a way to sneak their cash out of the country, and Rainey provided the method. His daily contact with fishermen allowed him to recruit people who were open to carrying questionable cargo. Especially if they were behind on their rent and needed the money.

Cole stopped him.

“Did these people know what they were carrying?”

“The deal was, no questions asked, but Rainey told at least two fishermen they were carrying pot on its way to Miami. That’s the way it was packaged, in black, waterproof bales. How it worked was, Rainey and a couple of guards would hand off the bales to a fisherman on his way out, along with waypoint coordinates to meet up with a vessel out past the rigs. All they had to do was hand over the bales, then get on with their fishing.”

“Rainey was telling the DEA about this?”

Terry laughed.

“Uh-uh. He fed them an occasional inbound shipment or dropped the dime on small-time players. Just enough to keep the DEA off his back. They didn’t know he was smuggling cash until everything blew up.”

“What happened?”

Lucy said, “The woman. Dru Rayne’s true name is Rose Marie Platt. Rainey met her when she worked at a restaurant down in the Quarter for a man named Tolliver James. She and James were living together.”

Terry jumped in again.

“James bought fish and shrimp from Rainey, so the speculation is this was how Rainey and Platt met. Couple of months later, she broke up with James and moved in with Rainey. Couple of months after that, which puts us two weeks before the storm, Rainey and Platt disappeared with the Bolivians’ money. On or about that same day, a shrimper named Mike Fourchet went fishing, but didn’t come back. Mike and his boat were found at a landing on Quarantine Bay. Fourchet had been shot in the back of the head.”

“Was Fourchet one of Rainey’s fishermen?”

“That’s how the DEA made the connection. They found Fourchet’s name in Rainey’s business records. Then they really got stoked when they found out the woman’s ex-boyfriend, Tolliver James, was murdered during the storm.”

“Did Rainey do it?”

“Not even close. The DEA believes he was killed by your specialist. He was beaten to death—beat real bad, too, like he was tortured. The bones in his legs were broken so bad they were nothing but splinters down in the meat.”

Terry paused as if he realized he was being too graphic with Lucy in the room.

“Sorry, Ms. Chenier.”

“Terry, please.”

“Anyway, all this stuff I’m telling you, it took the Feds and the DOJ two or three years to figure out. You know how investigations come together—you build’m a piece at a time.”

“You said Rainey was good for a murder.”

“Fourchet. The case dicks learned Rainey delivered the twelve mil to Fourchet the morning he went out. They believe Rainey went back later without the guards, or maybe told Fourchet to meet up with him on his way out, but either way, Fourchet ended up dead, and Rainey and Platt split with the money.”

“So Rainey and Platt murdered Fourchet?”

“Everyone down here thinks so, including the Bolivians. That’s why they put out the reward and sent their man up here. This guy’s been after them for years.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“All I know is what I’ve told you. He’s their go-to executioner.”

“Executioner.”

“That’s how my guy described him before he shut down. An executioner. What else you gonna call an animal who racks up nine killings?”

Terry corrected himself.

“Eleven.”

Nobody spoke for a moment, then Terry remembered something.

“Wait, I guess there is something else. All these people he’s killed have been connected to Rainey or Platt—someone in the family, someone they worked with, someone who might know how to find them. He’s been eating his way through their friends and family. Like with Tolliver James.”

A silence settled between the three of them that no one seemed anxious to fill.

Finally, Cole said, “If the FBI comes back to you, give them my name.”

Lucy said, “Are you sure? We can delay this or stall it. I don’t want you in jeopardy.”

Cole smiled, and for the first time during the call felt a flush of comfort.

“You’re the best, Lucille.”

“Sometimes.”

“Yes, you are, but give them my name. Terry, I appreciate this, man, but if they call, put them on me. We’ll have to bring in the locals here anyway. They need to know this.”

Cole told Lucy he would call later, then printed the new pictures of Wilson and Dru. Cole corrected himself. William Rainey and Rose Platt.

Cole said, “It just keeps getting better.”

He heard Pike pull up outside as the second picture emerged from the printer, and met him in the kitchen. Cole thought Pike looked tired, his gaunt face hollow and lined behind the gleaming dark glasses. Pike drank an entire bottle of water before he came up for air.

Cole said, “How long have you been awake?”

“I’m good.”

Cole figured he was going on forty-eight hours.

“Grab something to eat.”

“I’m good to go.”

“Okay, we finally have something. Lucy found out who they are. It isn’t good news.”

Pike leaned against the counter as Cole went through it, arms crossed, as still as a hardwood statue. Pike only moved once as Cole related the information.