Under Siege (9 page)

“They’re paying ten to fifteen percent now. So they’ll be less than enthusiastic at first. They’ll change their minds, though, and see the benefits of our proposal.”

“Will ten outlets do enough business to handle the volume you’ll need?”

“I doubt it,” Bernie said. “We’ll probably double the number of outlets within a month, then open other outlets in other cities. A to Z is going to enjoy an explosive expansion.”

They discussed the intricacies of it. The key to staying in business was having a bulletproof cover story. “You’ll need a bank, maybe two,” Brody told his client as they pushed their plates toward the center of the table and poured coffee.

“Yeah. There’s a savings and loan in Alexandria that should become available in the next week or so. The head cashier had a bad accident on the freeway Friday. Guy named Harrington.” Bernie grinned. “Fridays are not good days around here, apparently.”

The lawyer chuckled his agreement.

Bernie continued: “This Harrington was washing money for Freeman Mcationally.” Mcationally was the largest crack dealer in Washington and also one of T. Jefferson Brody’s clients. Bernie Shapiro may or may not have known that. Brody survived by never, ever mentioning one client’s affairs to another client. He had absolutely no intention of breaking tilde that rule now.

Bernie continued: “A guy on the inside figured out what Harrington was up to and talked to a guy who knew somebody. One thing led to another, and now we got a deal with this guy on the inside. Tomorrow or the day after the regulators will be called in. Three or four days after that, the place will probably be for sale cheap. You’re going to buy it for us.”

T. Jefferson Brody grinned this time. “Okay. But we’ll need some front people for this one. Little tougher to buy an SandL.”

“Our guy inside will get a piece, and he’ll come up with three or four names. We put up all the money and he’ll run it for us. You’ll do the legal work, of course.” They discussed it for over an hour. When they had ironed out the details, T. Jefferson Brody thought it time to broach subject of his fee. “Bernie, this new enterprise should be profitable for you.”

“Should be.” Bernie lit a fresh cigar. “I want to raise my fee.”

Bernie puffed serenely on the cigar and stared through the smoke at the lawyer. “We pay you fifty a month, Tee.”

“I know. And I do excellent work that enables you to make really major money. In good conscience, Bernie, I think my fee should be higher.”

“You’re a fixer,” Bernie Shapiro said, his eyes on the attorney. “If we go down the tubes, you’ll still be standing there high and dry. You take no risks, you invest no money, you’re shielded by client confidentiality. Fifty a month is enough.”

Brody tried to interrupt but Bernie raised his paim- “We never expected you to do our work exclusively. If we thought you’d violated a confidence, Tee, tried to shave a little for yourself from one of our deals, or played both ends against the middle, we’d find another lawyer. We’d even send flowers to your funeral. But you don’t do things like that. So we pay you a fifty-thousand-dollar monthly retainer for whatever little chores you do, regardless.” T. Jefferson Brody opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Bernie Shapiro smiled. He had a good smile. “Think of it this way, Tee. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of billing us. We send the check on the first of the month even if you spent the previous month on vacation in the Bahamas. Isn’t that soThat’

Brody nodded.

“Thanks for dropping by this morning, Tee. Tuesday you start with the widow.” Bernie stood and held the lawyer’s coat. “Stay in touch.” “Sure.”

“Remember, Tee. Greed is bad for your soul.”

As T. Jefferson Brody drove away from the Hay Adams in his Mercedes coups, Henry Charon left his hotel, a significantly more modest establishment than the Hay Adams, and set forth upon the sidewalks. This morning his course took him toward the Supreme Court building, immediately behind the Capitol. He circled the building slowly, examined the tags on the parking spaces, and stood looking at buildings across Second Street. Then he wandered in that direction. Assassinating people was exactly like hunting deer. The hunter’s-task was to place himself to take advantage of a momentary opportunity. The skill involved was to get to the right place at the right time with the right equipment and to make the shot when fate and circumstances offered.

He should have been a military sniper, Charon thought, not for the first time. He would have been good at the work and he would have enjoyed it. Yet snipers need wars to employ their skills. An assassin is in demand all the timeHe came back to the unsolved problem of potential informers in the organization or group that wanted to hire him. He had no idea who these people were, though he supposed that with a reasonable effort he could find out. If he found out, what then?

Perhaps the thing to do was to plan now for a permanent disappearance, a permanent change Of identity. The drawback was time. He didn’t have enough time to do it right. And if done incorrectly, such a move would be worse than doing nothing at all.

Afterward, could he devote six months to proper preparation, then vanish? Would he have six months?

Mulling these and similar questions, in the alley behind the buildings facing Second Street Henry Charon found a dumpster sitting directly beneath a fire escape. He moved the large metal trash box and pulled on rubber gloves. Apparently no one was watching. Vaulting to the top of the dumpster, he curled his fingers around the lowest rung of the ladder and pulled it down. With one last glance around, Charon was on his way up. The building didn’t even have a burglar alarm. It was old, with wooden-frame windows. He used a credit card on a latch and was inside in seconds. The elevator worked. He took it to the top floor. The offices on this floor were empty

dark this Sunday afternoon. Henry Charon went look for the stairs.

The door to the roof had a lock that yielded to a set of picks. Charon stepped out on the roof and took in the scene at a glance. The view down into the Supreme Court parking lot was partially obscured by defoliated tree branches. That didn’t bother him. He had made many a shot through much thicker brush and foliage and at much longer ranges. The Supreme Court building was about a hundred yards from here and the Capitol about five hundred. The adjacent buildings were of the same height as this one. An eighteeninch-high combing provided cover around the edge of the flat roof. Excellent.

Thirty seconds after opening the door, Charon had it closed and locked. Back down the stairs he went, out through the top-floor office window to the fire escape, down the ladder to the top of the dumpster. He was walking briskly toward Constitution Avenue a minute and nine seconds after he closed the door on the roof.

Jack Yocke carefully proofed his follow-up story on Friday’s beltway murder. He scrolled it slowly up the screen as he checked every word and comma.

The heart of the story was a speculation by a Montgomery County police lieutenant that some frustrated speeder might have potted Walter P. Harrington in a moment of rage because he was a sadistic jerk who always drove at fifty-five miles per hour in the fast lane. Yocke had dressed it up some for the Post, but that was the essence of the story. No new evidence. The bullet that killed Harrington had not been recovered. No witnesses to the killing had come forward. The widow was devastated. The funeral was Monday.

Off the record, the Montgomery County police had admitted that the killing would probably never be solved unless the killer got drunk and talked too much. Jack Yocke had passed that information to the editor so he would not expect follow-up stories. As he punched keys to send the story of Walter P. Harrington on its electronic way, Yocke saw Ottmar Mer

genthaler stroll through the newsroom on his way to his cubicle. Mergenthaler waved him over. “Hey, Jack, you busy right now?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

“That Colombian drug kingpin is having a press conference. Want to go with me?”

“Sure.”

“Gotta.get a tape recorder, then we’ll do it.”

In the car Jack asked, “How’d you get this plum, any ?”

way

Mergenthaler chuckled. “I know the lawyer representing Aldana. Guy name of Thanos Liarakos, big criminal defense mercenary. Known him for years. He always represents mob guys and dopers. They’re the only crooks who can afford him. Gets one off the hook just often enough to be able to charge outrageously and still have all the work he can handle. Anyway, he called and said Aldana was demanding a jail-cell press conference with a network TV crew, but I could come if I wanted.” “What’s he going to say?”

“Liarakos didn’t know. He strongly advised Aldana against talking to the press, but the client insisted.”

“There goes his claim that media hype has prejudiced possible jurors-prevented any possibility of a fair trial.”

“Yep, Looks like Aldana isn’t the type to take advice from lawyers, no matter what they cost to keep around.”

“Has he really got a net worth of four billion dollars?”

“Who the hell knows? I’ll bet even Aldana doesn’t.”

Four billion! What is that … his Four thousand million? The sum was beyond comprehension. Oh, the government throws around numbers like that, but not individuals. Four billion was more than the gross national product of Iceland. You could buy Arkansas for that amount, own your own state. You could hire every whore in North and South America and keep them as your private harem in the state you owned on the Mississippi. And if the feds didn’t like it, you could hire every lawyer in New York and Washington to raise hell in every court in America. “That’s a lot of money,” Jack Yocke muttered.

“Too much.” Yocke snorted. “That’s heresy, Ott! There’s no such thing. Bite your tongue.”

There was a mob at the district jail. Reporters and cameramen crammed the entryway. After Yocke and Mergenthaler elbowed their way to the desk, they found the desk sergeant engaged in a shouting match with a local TV anchorman as the cameras rolled.

“You can’t keep us out. We’re the press!”

“I don’t give a fuck who you are. The only people who get in are people on this list.” The sergeant stabbed the sheet of paper on the counter in front of him with a rigid finger. “You ain’t on it. Now get the hell outta here or we’ll find a cell for you. And turn off that fucking spotlight!”

“This is America!”

“Read my lips, asshole! Out!”

“Mergenthaler, Washington Post. was The reporter slid his credentials across the dark wood at the sergeant, who consulted his list while the TV anchorman made yet another eloquent protest. “You’re on the list. Through that door over there.”

“I have another guy with me from the Post. his

Yocke displayed his credentials and was waved through as the sergeant addressed himself to the still spluttering TV man: “No. No! No! What part of no don’t you understand?”

Two policemen wuched them for weapons while a third checked Mergenthaler’s tape recorder. Then they were led down a long corridor that had decades worth of dirt caked on its dark, onceen walls. Up a flight of ill-lit stairs, through another security checkpoint, through steel doors that slid open as they approached and closed behind them, and past rows of brimming cells. The occupants jeered and shouted obscenities.

The reporters were led through another steel door into a booking room of some sort where a camera crew was busy setting up lights and two cameras. This room had several steel doors besides the one they had entered. One was partially open and Yocke peeked. Beyond was a suite of four

cells, padded, cells for psychos. Apparently the cops didn’t want Aldana out in the multiple-occupancy cells with the common criminals.

The network correspondent, whom Yocke recognized but didn’t know, nodded at Mergenthaler, then consulted a notebook while a woman worked on him from a portable makeup box. She combed his hair and squirted hairspray. One of the technicians tested a pin-on microphone as a uniformed cop watched without expression.

Mergenthaler found a spot where he could observe and not be caught by the cameras. Yocke leaned against the wall beside him. The minutes passed. Five, then ten.

Occasionally someone coughed, but mostly they stood silently. Waiting.

What kind of man was this Aldana? Jack Yocke tried to picture the man he thought would appear, based upon what he knew about him. A thug, he decided. Some sort of hate-filled Latin American barrio bastard who thought Adolf Hitler was the prophet of how to win and rule in the coming chaos. Sounds like the title of a self-help bestseller. Yocke wondered if there was a big book in Chano Aldana’s future.

A darkly handsome man in a gray suit came out of one of the doors. He squinted against the floodlights, then said hello to the TV talker and Mergenthaler.

“My client will be out in a moment. Here are the rules. He has a statement to make, then the TV people get five minutes to ask questions. After they finish, Mergenthaler gets five minutes.”

“I don’t want Mergenthaler here while we’re filming,” the correspondent said.

“When will you run your interview?” Thanos Liarakos asked.

“Tonight probably, and on the morning show tomorrow.”

“I don’t see any problem.” The lawyer frowned. “He isn’t going to scoop you. And you can film while he asks questions, if you wish.”

No, the TV people weren’t going to do that. Under normal circumstances were they going to take the chance that he might ask more perceptive questions on camera than their man. “Show business,” Mergenthaler whispered sourly to Yocke. Speaking louder, he asked, “Mr. Liarakos, do you know what Aldana will say?”

“No. 11 “Has he discussed it with you?”

“No.”

“Did you recommend to your client that he hold a press conference?”

“No comment.”

“If the prosecutors ask the judge for a gag order, will you fight it?”

“I never speculate in that manner.”

“Can Aldana get a fair trial here in Washington?”

“I don’t think that he can get a fair trial anywhere in the United States.”

“How much longer do we have to wait?” grumped the TV man.