Extreme Denial (30 page)

“They must have been given another assignment while they were out here,” Decker said as calmly as he could.

“You don’t seem affected by what happened to Ben.”

“In my own way.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Esperanza said. “Aren’t you curious about what he was doing there and where his partner is?”

“Let me
ask you
a question,” Decker said angrily. “Why did you wait so long to tell me you’d put out a police alert about me?”

“I wanted the right moment. To make a point. You need me,” Esperanza said. “Security at the Albuquerque airport has your name. The officers are watching for a man of your description. The minute you try to buy a ticket, you’ll be stopped. If you want to fly to New York, you need me to call off the alert, and I charge a price for doing that. You’re going to have to let me come along.”

“Fly to New York? What makes you think I—”

“Decker, just once, for Christ sake, quit playing mind games with me, will you?”

“Why would you want to go to New York?”

“Let’s say tomorrow’s my day off and my wife and I could use a little distance from each other.” Esperanza gestured with frustration. “Or let’s say being with you is a definite learning experience and I’m not ready to let the classes end. Or maybe, let’s say ... and this is really far-out... let’s say I’m a cop because I’m a sucker for helping people. Dumb idea, huh? Right now, I can’t think of anybody who needs help more than Beth Dwyer. I want to help you save her. I’ve got a feeling you’re the only person who really knows how to do that.”

7

The roar of the eastward-bound jet vibrated through the fuselage. Sunlight blazed through the window, making Decker’s weary eyes feel stabbed. As flight attendants came down the aisle, handing out coffee and a sweet roll, his stomach pained him, reminding him of the stomach problems that he used to have when he was an operative. It’s all coming back, he told himself.

Esperanza sat next to him, the only other passenger in the row. “I regret I’ve never met Beth Dwyer. She must be very special.”

Decker stared out the window at the high-desert landscape he was leaving, the mountains, the arroyos, the Rio Grande, the green of piñon trees against the yellow, orange, and red of the land. He couldn’t help being reminded of his ambivalent feelings when he had first arrived, his concern that he might have been making a mistake. Now, after more than a year, he was flying away, and again he felt ambivalent, again wondered if he was making a mistake.

“Yes,” Decker said, “very special.”

“You must love her very much.”

“That depends. It may be”—Decker had trouble speaking—”that I also hate her.”

“Hate?”

“She should have told me about her background,” Decker said.

“At the start, she probably thought it was none of your business.”

“And what about later, after she and I were involved?” Decker insisted.

“Maybe she was afraid to tell you, afraid you’d react as you’re reacting now.”

“If she loved me, she would have trusted me.”

“Ah,” Esperanza said. “I’m beginning to understand. You’re worried that maybe
she
doesn’t love
you
.”

“I’ve always let business control my personal life,” Decker said. “I have never been in love, not truly. Until I met Beth Dwyer, I had never allowed myself to experience...” Decker hesitated. “Passion.”

Esperanza furrowed his brow.

“When I did commit, when I gave myself, it was totally. Beth became the absolute focus of my life. If I was merely a convenience to her ...” Decker’s voice dropped toward despair.

“Suppose you do find out that she didn’t care about you, that you
were
just an unwitting bodyguard. What will you do about it?”

Decker didn’t answer.

Esperanza persisted. “Would you still save her?”

“In spite of everything?”

“Yes.”

“In spite of all my suspicions, all my fear that she betrayed me, my anger because of my fear?”

“Yes.”

“I’d go through hell for her. God help me, I still love her.”

NINE

—————

1

It was raining when Decker arrived in New York, a strong, steady downpour that was one measure of how foreign Manhattan felt to him after New Mexico’s arid climate. The unaccustomed humidity was palpable. After having lived for fifteen months at almost a mile and a half above sea level, he felt an atmospheric pressure that reinforced the emotional pressure inside him. Accustomed to being able to see for hundreds of miles, he felt constricted by skyscrapers. And by people: The total population of New Mexico was 1.5 million, but that many people lived within the twenty-two square miles of Manhattan alone, and that didn’t count the hundreds of thousands who commuted to the island to work, with the consequence that Decker was conscious—as he had never been until he experienced New Mexico’s peace and expansiveness—of New York’s intense noise and congestion.

Esperanza stared in fascination out the taxi’s rain-beaded windows.

“Never been here?” Decker asked.

“The only big cities I’ve been to are Denver, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. They’re low. They sprawl. Here, everything’s jammed together, crammed on top of each other.”

“Yeah, we’re not in the wide-open spaces any longer.” The taxi let them off at the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. The large brick building was closed. As Decker carried his travel bag into the shelter of one of the doorways, his headache increased. Although the sleep he had managed to get on the airplane had not been enough to relieve his weariness, nervous energy kept him going. Fear for Beth fueled him.

Esperanza peered into the deserted market, then glanced at the shops on the other side of the street. “Is our hotel in this area?”

“We don’t have one. We don’t have time to check into One.”

“But you made a phone call at the airport. I thought you were making a reservation.”

Decker shook his head; the movement aggravated his headache, but he was too obsessed to notice. He waited until the taxi drove out of sight. Then he left the market’s doorway and began walking north through the rain. “I was making an appointment with someone.”

“Nearby?”

“A couple of blocks.”

“Then why didn’t you let the taxi take us straight to him?”

“Because I didn’t want the taxi driver to know my business. Look, I’m afraid this isn’t going to work. There’s too much to explain, and not enough time,” Decker said impatiently. “You’ve been very helpful. You called off the New Mexico police alert on me. You got me through airport security in Albuquerque. I wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you. I mean that. Really. But you have to understand—our partnership ends right here. Take a taxi to midtown. Enjoy the city.”

“In the rain?”

“See a show. Have a nice meal.”

“I kind of doubt New York meals come with red and green salsa.”

“Give yourself a little vacation. Then fly back tomorrow morning. Your department must be wondering where you’ve gone.”

“They won’t know I’ve left. I told you, this is my day off.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“I’ll call in sick.”

“You don’t have jurisdiction here,” Decker said. “Do yourself a favor. Get back to New Mexico as soon as possible.”

“No.”

“You won’t be able to follow me. Two minutes from now, you won’t have any idea how I got away from you.”

“But you won’t do that.”

“Oh? What makes you think so?”

“Because you can’t be sure you won’t need me.”

2

The bar—on First Avenue near Delancey—looked to be on the verge of going out of business. In its windows, liquor advertisements had faded almost to illegibility. The windows themselves were so grimy that they couldn’t be seen through. Several letters in its neon sign were burned out, so that instead of
BENNIE’S,
it now read
BE E’S.
A derelict holding a whiskey bottle in a paper bag slumped on the sidewalk next to the entrance, mindless of the downpour.

Frustrated by the rush of time, Decker crossed the street, heading toward the bar. He was followed by Esperanza, whose cowboy hat had been replaced by an inconspicuous Yankees baseball cap that they had bought from a souvenir stand along the way. His long hair had been tied back so that it, too, was less noticeable. About to go into the bar, Decker made Esperanza pause at the entrance, letting the derelict, who wasn’t a derelict, get a good look at them.

“Bennie’s expecting us,” Decker said.

The derelict nodded.

Decker and Esperanza went into the bar, which was hazy with cigarette smoke. Given its shabby exterior, the place was surprisingly busy, its noise level high because of a football game on a big-screen television.

Decker went directly to the husky bartender. “Is Bennie around?”

“Ain’t seen him.”

“I phoned earlier and made an appointment.”

“Says who?”

Decker used a pseudonym. “Charles Laird.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” The bartender gestured toward the far end of the counter. “Bennie’s waiting for you in his office. Leave your bag with me.”

Decker nodded, handing him the small suitcase, putting twenty dollars on the counter. “This is for the beer we didn’t have.”

He led Esperanza toward the closed door at the end of the counter, then halted.

“What’s the matter?” Esperanza asked. “Why don’t you go ahead and knock?”

“There’s a formality we have to get through first. I hope you don’t mind being groped.”

Four broad-shouldered men turned from playing pool at a table next to the door. Eyes cold, they searched Decker and Esperanza roughly and thoroughly. With a final check of both men’s ankles, not finding any microphones or weapons, they nodded curtly in dismissal and went back to playing pool. They didn’t find anything suspicious because, at Decker’s insistence, Esperanza had left his badge and handgun locked in Decker’s Jeep Cherokee at the Albuquerque airport. Decker was determined that if he and Esperanza had to do any shooting, it wouldn’t be with a weapon that could be traced to either of them.

Only now did Decker knock on the door. Hearing a muffled voice behind it, he opened it and faced a narrow, cluttered office in which an overweight man with a striped shirt, a bow tie, and suspenders sat at a desk. The man was elderly. He had a bald head and a silvery mustache. A polished brass cane lay across the top of his desk.

“How are you, Bennie?” Decker asked.

“On a diet. Can’t seem to lose this weight. Doctor’s orders. And what about you, Charles?”

“I’ve got trouble.”

Bennie nodded wisely, each movement of his head squeezing his double chins together. “No one ever comes to me otherwise.”

“This is a friend of mine.” Decker indicated Esperanza.

Bennie listlessly raised a hand.

“My friend has to make a phone call.”

“Right over there.” Bennie pointed to a pay phone in a corner.

“It’s still linked to a pay phone in Jersey City?”

“That’s where anyone tracing the call will think you are,” Bennie said.

Decker gestured to Esperanza that it was okay for him to make the call. As agreed, it would be to Miller in Santa Fe to find out if there was any news about Beth and McKittrick. Decker had phoned him several times en route, desperate to know if Beth was still alive. So far, there wasn’t any news.

“Sit down,” Bennie told Decker as Esperanza put coins in the pay phone. “How can I help?”

Decker positioned himself in a chair across from Bennie, knowing that a shotgun was under the intervening desk. “Thank you. You were always cooperative when I needed help before.”

“It amused me,” Bennie said. “A change of pace, doing something for my government.”

Decker understood. Although it was commonly thought that the CIA had a mandate limiting it to overseas operations, the fact was that it maintained offices in various major American cities and did on occasion carry out domestic operations, but, in theory, not without first obeying a presidential order to alert the FBI. It had been with the cooperation of the bureau that Decker had consulted with Bennie three years earlier and been given a fake identity as a mob member associated with Bennie. The purpose was to enable Decker to infiltrate a foreign terrorist network that was trying to disrupt the United States by using organized crime to flood the country with fake hundred-dollar bills.

“I’m sure the government was most appreciative,” Decker said.

“Well, it doesn’t come around and bother me anymore.” Bennie shrugged listlessly. “And after all, it
was
in my self-interest. What’s bad for the economy is bad for
my
business, too.” He smiled slightly.

“This time, I can’t offer you incentives, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?” Bennie looked suspicious.

“I don’t have anything to do with the government these days. I have a personal favor to ask you.”

“Favor?” Bennie grimaced.

In the background, Decker heard Esperanza speaking into the pay phone, his tone somber as he asked questions.

“What kind of favor?” Bennie obviously dreaded the answer.

“I need to know how to contact Nick Giordano.”

Bennie’s cheeks normally had a touch of pink. Now they turned pale. “No. Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to be involved with any involvement
you
have with Nick Giordano.”

“I swear to you, this has nothing to do with the government.”

Bennie’s formerly listless gestures were now animated. “I don’t care! I don’t want to know anything about it!”

Decker leaned forward. “And I
don’t want
you to know anything about it.”

Bennie stopped suddenly in mid-gesture. “
Don’t want
me to know?”

“All I’m asking for is a simple piece of information. How do I get in touch with Nick Giordano? Not the owner of the restaurant where he likes to eat. Not one of his lieutenants.

Not his attorney.
Him. You
won’t have to introduce us.
You
won’t be directly involved in any way. I’ll take the responsibility for making contact. Giordano will never know who told me how to get in touch with him.”