Dog Tags (18 page)

They exited about five miles before Primm, pulling off on a small road that seemed to lead to nowhere but desert. By then
Tyler had fallen asleep, and M would have preferred to shoot him then. Unfortunately, that would have gotten blood all over
the rental car, so M had to force him out of the car before putting a bullet in his head.

By the time he buried him, it was too late to get a flight out of town, so that had to wait until the next morning.

At which point the road trip would be over, which would allow him to get back and deal with the dog, and the lawyer.

T
HE
I
NSTITUTE FOR
E
NERGY
I
NDEPENDENCE’S MOTTO IS
“T
HE FUTURE IS HAPPENING ALL AROUND US.”
Which may be true, but the directors chose a building that stopped representing the future around 1908. It’s old and run-down,
with an elevator that has to make rest stops on its way up to the sixth-floor offices.

My only-rich-companies-have-good-looking-receptionists theory takes a hit when the young woman sitting at the lobby desk is
an absolute knockout. She brings me back to Eliot Conyers’s office, and on the way there I only see three other employees.
This does not appear to be a thriving institute.

Conyers has the look of a guy who works for a living, complete with loosened tie and rolled-up sleeves. He has an earnestness
about him, the type who really cares and thinks he can make a difference. But if he’s been working on energy independence,
he doesn’t have that much to show for it. If George Washington had the same independence-achieving record, we’d all be eating
fish-and-chips.

He welcomes me with a smile and an offer of a Diet Pepsi, which I gratefully accept.

“Thanks for seeing me,” I say.

“I was afraid that if I didn’t, Vince would be pissed at me. Life is too short for that.”

I laugh. “Believe me, I know what you mean.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“I’m working on a case that—”

He interrupts. “I know. The Erskine murder.”

“You’re familiar with it?” I ask.

He nods. “Only because it’s tied to the al-Hakim killing. That was a rather major event in my world.”

“How so?”

“When we invaded Iraq, the media talked about how people were looting stores, museums, even ammunition depots from the previous
regime. Unfortunately, that was kid stuff compared with the way the country’s oil was being stolen. The corruption in the
oil ministry was mind-boggling, and it continued for years. On some level it’s continuing now.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

He smiles. “Many billions. Many, many billions.”

“And we couldn’t stop it?”

“That depends on who you mean by ‘we.’ If you mean the American government, we could have stopped a lot of it if we put our
mind to it. But if you remember, our troops were otherwise engaged. And we farmed out a great deal of what we did to private
contractors, many of whom saw a chance to become unbelievably wealthy in a very short time.”

“Where does al-Hakim fit in?” I ask.

“As the military situation got better, we started putting pressure on the Iraqi government to get the corrupt oil system under
control. When the pressure became too great to resist, Yasir al-Hakim was appointed to head up the oil ministry. He was the
man we insisted on.”

“Because he was honest.”

He shrugs. “That was his reputation going in, but of course you never know until someone is put into the position. He didn’t
get a chance to deliver on his promise, which was to go through the industry with a scrub brush.”

“Which made him a target.”

“I figured that if he was for real, his life expectancy would be about a week. He lasted six, but three of them were in a
coma after the explosion.”

“And his death has had a major impact?”

Conyers nods vigorously. “In a couple of ways. In the long term, it’s had a chilling effect on other potential reformers;
martyrdom in that part of the world is limited mostly to religion, not business or government.”

“And in the short term?”

“It sent the price of oil way up. The market doesn’t like instability and uncertainty, so the explosion was a major event.
Since then the price has gone down considerably, mostly because of economic conditions.”

“So who killed al-Hakim?” I ask.

“I can’t give you names, but you can be sure it was the people whose profit al-Hakim was preparing to eliminate.” He shakes
his head sadly. “They took a sixteen-year-old girl, probably convinced her she was on a mission from God, and sent her in
to blow herself up.”

“But she couldn’t have gotten there on her own, which is where Erskine came in.”

He nods. “Do I have proof of that? No. But that would be my first, second, and third guesses. And his murder makes it even
more likely.”

“Any idea why they waited until the foreign businessmen were there for that conference?

He shrugs. “Al-Hakim knew he was a target, so he was almost never out in public. But for this event, he was probably assured
by the Americans that we had his back. How’d that work out?”

We talk a little more, but Conyers has no more information to offer. I thank him, and as I’m leaving I ask, “So are we going
to get energy independence?”

He smiles. “Not this week.”

P
ATIENCE WAS NEVER SOMETHING
W
ILLIE
M
ILLER EVER REALLY HAD PATIENCE FOR.
It made sense, seeing as he had wasted seven years sitting in a prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He certainly wouldn’t
want to waste more of his life waiting or sitting around. But the truth was that Willie was an impatient person long before
he ever went to prison, and that trait simply continued afterward.

Yet Willie’s lack of patience was never quite as pronounced as in the days after he killed Ray Childress. He had told both
Andy and Laurie that he wanted to be involved in the investigation, that he was anxious to help in any way he could.

They had both assured him that he would get his wish, but he felt they were just putting him off, and in the days since they
hadn’t come to him with anything.

He didn’t want to keep bothering them, but he had this problem: Somebody had paid Ray Childress to hold a gun on Sondra, and
that somebody was still walking around free. That was simply intolerable.

It was time to talk to Joseph Russo.

Joseph Russo had been convicted on a weapons charge just before Willie’s retrial, and their stay in prison had overlapped
for almost three months. One day Russo was attacked by three other inmates in the prison yard, men who either didn’t know
who Russo was or who were trying to make a name for themselves.

Russo was a top lieutenant in the Vincent Petrone crime family, which considered New Jersey its personal playground. But that
didn’t help him that day in the prison yard, alone and facing three men with makeshift knives.

What helped him was Willie Miller. Russo and Willie weren’t friends, but they had conversed a few times and developed a prison
form of respect. What Willie did not respect was what was about to happen to Russo. Three against one, especially when the
three had weapons, was not the kind of competition that Willie would look favorably on. And it was certainly not the kind
of thing he would look away from.

The whole thing took about forty seconds, and an hour after that Willie and Russo were back in their cells, and the three
men were in the hospital. No action was subsequently taken against either Willie or Russo, mainly because the entire incident
was captured by the prison surveillance cameras.

Russo was appropriately grateful, and vowed that if Willie ever needed anything, all he had to do was ask.

Now was the time to ask.

The problem was that Willie had no real idea how to do that. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Russo in years, though he had heard
Russo had only spent eight months in prison. It wasn’t like he had his address or phone number, but it was going to take much
more than that little glitch to stop him.

It was pretty well known that the Petrone family used the Riverside area of Paterson as their base of operations. It was a
collection of unassuming streets and houses, rather old-fashioned, and
completely free of crime. Kids played out front without parental supervision, secure in the knowledge that no one in their
right mind would dare harm anyone in that neighborhood.

Willie went down there at six
PM
, a time when he figured a lot of people would be out and about. He parked in front of a diner and started walking. To everybody
he saw he said the same thing: “Hey, my name is Willie Miller, and I’m looking for Joseph Russo. You know him?”

Every single person said they did not know Russo, so Willie smiled and said, “If you meet him, please tell him I’ll be at
the diner, waiting to talk to him.” Most people in Willie’s situation would have been nervous, but Willie had been born with
a defective anxiety gene.

After half an hour of spreading the word, Willie went back to the diner, ordered a burger and french fries, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait very long. Two men, one large and the other larger, came in and the diner immediately felt crowded.
They walked over to Willie’s table, and the smaller of the two said, “Let’s go.”

Willie stuffed the last few french fries into his mouth and followed them. They walked down the street, and the smaller man
dropped behind Willie, so that Willie was in the middle. Willie noticed kids in the street and on the porches staring at them,
and he waved as if he were in a parade.

The unlikely threesome went three blocks, ending at a house that looked no more expensive or impressive than any of the others.
The larger man went up the steps and opened the door without knocking, then signaled for Willie and the other man to follow.

Willie heard the sound of a television, which seemed to come from upstairs. He was led into a den, where Joseph Russo was
shooting pool with another man. Willie was struck by how much weight Russo had gained since getting off prison food. Back
then he was maybe 160 pounds, which looked appropriate for his five-foot-ten
frame. Looking at him now, Willie figured him for more than two hundred.

Russo looked up, saw Willie, and broke into a broad grin. “My man,” he said, then put down the cue stick and walked over,
wrapping Willie in a bear hug. “How ya doin’?”

“Still cool,” said Willie. “Stayin’ cool.”

Willie suddenly realized that they were alone; his two escorts and the other pool player had seemed to vanish in thin air.
He wanted to get to the reason he was there right away, but Russo wanted to drink beer and reminisce about the old days, as
if they had been fraternity brothers for four years rather than casually acquainted inmates for three months.

Russo only briefly referred to the attack that day in the prison yard, but did mention that the three men regretted what they
did “until the day they died,” which was only two months later.

“So,” Russo finally said, “what can I do for you?”

“I killed a guy last week,” Willie said, but Russo showed no reaction at all. “His name was Ray Childress.”

“That was you?” Russo asked, and then laughed. “Childress was messing with you? I always knew he was an asshole. Man, I’ve
been telling my people for years about how you could handle yourself.”

Willie was pleased that Russo knew Childress. “He held a gun on my wife and tried to steal my dog.”

“Your dog?”

“Yeah. I need to know why he did that, and who sent him, so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“You think I know?” Russo asked.

Willie shrugged. “I figured you could find out. Especially if Petrone is involved.”

Russo reacted quickly to the mention of his boss. “This had nothing to do with Mr. Petrone,” he said, then softened and laughed.
“He don’t even like dogs.”

Russo stood up, hand extended to shake, a signal that the meeting was over. “Let me see what I can find out, okay? I’ll call
you.”

“Thanks, man.” He handed Russo a business card, which he’d had made when he and Andy started the Tara Foundation.