Gone Bamboo (21 page)

"We're fucked," said Charlie, no longer trembling. He held Tommy's hand tightly in his and kissed him on the cheek, tenderly. "I just hope it's nobody I know," he said. "I always hated that part."

Tommy, still thinking of Cheryl up on the patio, couldn't speak. His tongue felt frozen in his mouth. He could only blink.

Henry recognized the big man at the head of the stairs instantly, felt a sickening sense of disappointment with himself for having missed him when he'd seen him on the beach. Hadn't he been at Cha Cha Cha that night too? He should have recognized the man for what he was immediately, when he first saw him frolicking with his whore at the Beach Club.

In his anger, he made another mistake.

Having come up on him without being detected, he jammed the muzzle of the Armalite into Kevin's kidney, blowing his advantage completely. Reacting instinctively to the sharp impact, Kevin, as anyone would feeling a blow to the sensitive organ, flinched. The shot from the Armalite only bit a harmless trail through Kevin's love handle, setting his T-shirt momentarily on fire.

Kevin whirled around with the Remington but banged the barrel into the doorframe. Henry fired a second time, panicked by the completely untroubled look on Kevin's face. The barrel of the shotgun exploded where he held it, his fingers bursting open like microwaved sausages. Without pausing for a second, Kevin simply dropped the shotgun and punched Henry full in the face with his bloody stub.

The punch sent Henry reeling onto his ass, ears ringing, as Kevin stepped forward and attempted a field goal with his heavy work boot. It sent the Armalite bouncing off Henry's brow and into the kitchen. Then Kevin was stomping with both feet, doing a murderous hokeypokey on Henry's abdomen as he tried vainly to crawl away. He managed to sink a bare foot deep into the half-mad Irishman's nuts, but he kept coming. Henry bit him in the thigh as he clubbed the side of his head with both hands, allowing him time only to stand up, gasping for air against the wall, as he tried to find somewhere, anywhere on the big man's body that might hurt if hit.

Kevin charged him with his whole body, flattening Henry against the wall with his bulk and knocking the wind out of him. Henry remembered the H
&c
K, reached for it, and realized his kaffiyeh had come loose. It lay on the floor, the pistol under it.

Henry took a punch in the face, then another, the flesh over his left eye tearing and filling it with blood. He let Kevin hit him in the mouth so he could bite him again, this time sinking his teeth into the injured hand, then attempting a head butt. Kevin just brought his knee up and knocked Henry's head back into the wall. He heard shots from outside.

There was an explosion. From downstairs. It shook the whole house, and then there was a sound like waves breaking. Kevin turned just long enough for Henry, already sagging, to reach the H
&C
K, under his kaffiyeh. He got his fingers around it and let go with the full clip, shooting up from the floor. He was not going to let this man get his hands on him again. Round after round went up and into the big man's abdomen, puncturing liver, spleen, pancreas, Kevin's white T-shirt blossoming like a rosebush in a time-lapse nature study. When Henry's last round tore a nice-size hunk out of Kevin's backbone, the big man jerked. His head moved suddenly to the side as the light in his eyes turned off, and he fell over like a building coming down.

Through the blood in his eyes, and the pain, Henry lay on the floor, hearing the ocean. He could swear he heard water rushing somewhere.

"Cheryl . . . Cheryl . . . sweetheart . . . you're gonna be okay," Frances was saying. The whistling sound had stopped, and she still leaned her full weight on her friend's chest, looking around for something better to fasten it with.

She noticed the man with no nose too late. He stood across the pool, clicking the empty chamber of an automatic shotgun. Cursing herself for putting down the Ithaca, Frances felt for it as the skinny Dominican dropped the shotgun and came around with an M-16 from a strap on his back, unslinging it with one hand.

A bullet snipped a piece of bone off the ridge of Frances's brow before she could get her gun up. A second shot, in the chest, punched her backward into the tangle of deck furniture. When she raised her head, she saw the man was reaching for something.

Getting onto her knees, Frances realized the man was nearly blinded by the wound to his face; she couldn't see his eyes, the upper part of his face was so disfigured. She snarled like a mad dog and brought up the Ithaca to fire. The first shot took him in the throat. It was enough. He touched his chin, something falling from his hand into the pool, then fell after it, leaking from the neck like a garden sprinkler.

This fragmentation grenade went off as advertised. Frances had just flopped her full weight onto Cheryl's chest as the blast sent a geyser of chlorinated plasma fifty feet into the air. It rained down on the two women. Frances slipped into unconsciousness, the whistling from Cheryl's chest starting again in her ear, drops of water falling around her.

Charlie was drowning. He was drowning in his own house. They were crouched down behind the bar, he and Tommy, watching the dead Dominican float past the picture window, a red halo emanating from his ruined head, when suddenly everything went white and Charlie was alone in the dark.

Then he was trying to dog-paddle, something heavy and soft between his legs. Charlie reached down, choking on water, praying it wasn't Tommy he felt. He saw matchbooks from the Havana Hilton float past, pool cues, novelty coasters, playing cards with big-titted women on them. As the water level rose (his tropical fish slithering past him), it reached the Tiffany chandelier over the pool table and shorted out the light. He tried to reach whatever, whoever it was between his legs. It seemed to be following him. He hooked a thumb into something unpleasant and got a quick, horrifying look at a dead Dominican, face only inches away, wounds washed momentarily clean by the water. Floundering, Charlie managed only a final full turn in the water, seeking Tommy, before he went under. He saw stars, felt an otherworldly calmness come over him that he assumed to be death.

Then someone was pulling his hair.

Charlie sat weeping at the edge of his emptied pool. Tommy's body lay next to him, a long shard of broken Plexiglas jutting from just below the Adam's apple. He wasn't sure about Cheryl. Henry had said something hopeful, but he was busy now, working over Frances in a chaise lounge a few yards away. Frances's blood-soaked kimono was spread out around her and Henry tried to bind her wounds with strips from his kaffiyeh. Charlie saw that there was a sharp piece of rib protruding from Henry's back, but he was too shattered to mention it. He looked down at Tommy again, then turned away.

Soft cries for help were coming from somewhere in the garden, but neither Charlie nor Henry was in any position to do anything about them, and Frances, awake now, didn't care.

"How is she?" she asked, worried about Cheryl.

"I don't know," said Henry. "It's all a mess."

"She still alive?"

Henry glanced over at the fallen girl, her chest rising and falling unsteadily. "Yes," said Henry, his eyes, too, filling with tears.

"Tommy?"

Henry shook his head.

"Oh," said Frances, closing her eyes. "It's . . . really bad, isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Henry. "It's bad . . . Charlie made i t . . . He's just over there."

"Whooop-de-fucking-doooo." Frances sighed. "Is . . . is somebody coming?" she asked. "Did you call somebody?"

"Yeah," said Henry, his voice filled with sadness. "We gotta get you to a hospital, baby . . . You're shot up pretty good."

"The cops , . .," said Frances. "This doesn't look . . . good."

"We're a little past that point," said Henry, with a bitter laugh. "Love me?" he asked, looking to save something.

"Yes," said Frances, closing her eyes.

He knew they'd arrived when he heard their silenced MP-5s. They were moving through the grounds, shooting the wounded. Marshals and Dominicans alike, dead or alive; each got a single round to the head. Trung appeared first, looking like he'd come from a lawn party, in a casual shirt and checked pants and huarachis. The others wore hoods and the black fatigue uniforms of Ribiere's shock troops. One dark figure stepped over to Henry, pushed him gently aside, and looked down at Frances. He whispered into a throat mike, and more hooded figures appeared out of the dark, bearing stretchers.

Henry heard the thrashing sound of muffled rotors overhead. A searchlight reached down from the sky and fixed him in its beam as the black helicopter moved over the house and set down in the rear bocce court.

"She needs immediate medical attention," said Monsieur Ribiere, lifting Frances's wrist to take a pulse. He barked out an order, and two hooded medics loaded her onto a stretcher.

A dark figure threw a hood over Charlie's head and marched him off into the darkness. He didn't resist. Henry held Frances's hand until Monsieur Ribiere patted him on the back and reassured him. "They will take her to hospital," he said. "You may go with her, if you like." He cast a dispassionate eye on Henry's face, on the length of bone that had torn through his back, sticking out like an aerial. "Yes," he said. "Someone will have to attend to you as well."

Monsieur Ribiere walked over to where Cheryl lay. "This one," he said ominously, "will need . . . special attention. We'll take her on the helicopter . . . to Curasao. They have better facilities there. Trung!"

Two hooded figures put Cheryl on a litter and loaded her into the chopper. The rotors started up again, and, to Henry's dismay, Trung hopped aboard. As it lifted off, he took a place in the open hatch of the helicopter, his feet resting on the skids. When he smiled at Henry, it made his blood run cold.

The searchlight went out, and the black chopper disappeared into the night sky. Henry followed alongside Frances's stretcher as they carried her down to the blue van.

"Are we okay?" she asked, opening her eyes for a second and seeing him there.

"We're fine," said Henry, not sure at all.

38

T
he New York Times'
s headline the next day read, MASSACRE: U.S. WITNESS, U.S. MARSHALS, OTHERS KILLED IN SHOOTOUT. Few details were offered, and it took several days for the follow-up story to appear:

Charles "Charlie Wagons" Iannello, whose burned and bullet-riddled corpse was found in the early morning hours Tuesday here, was apparently cooperating in a grand jury investigation aimed at other organized crime figures when he was killed.

Six U.S. marshals, guarding his residence, were also slain in what is reported to have been a furious firefight with as yet unidentified, armed intruders. Six Dominican nationals and a Caucasian male were also found dead at the scene, and two other persons, Thomas Pagano of New York City, reputedly a friend of Mr Iannello, and Cheryl Solomon of Westchester, are reported missing.

Sources say that Mr Iannello was scheduled to be a witness at the expected trial of James "Jimmy Pazz" Calabrese on murder and conspiracy charges. With Mr Iannello gone, the government case against Mr Calabrese is said to be in doubt.

Alerted by reports of gunfire and explosions in the exclusive Oyster Pond section of Saint Martin, local French police rushed to the scene to find Mr Iannello's residence in flames. In all, thirteen persons were found to have been killed, and photographs and records recovered from the burned home led authorities to conclude that Mr Pagano and Ms Solomon were missing. It is not known how many assailants escaped.

In Marigot, the capital of this tiny West Indian island, local officials and officers of the military and intelligence branches, speaking on background, expressed dismay at the carnage at what had been a quiet vacation retreat for the affluent, most of whom are French citizens.

Lt Governor Vance Richards, interviewed on a local television news show, said, "It is unconscionable that a person whose criminal activities and apparently imminent testimony against other violent criminals made him a likely target for such an attack should be staying in Saint Martin without our knowledge or consent. We would like, at the very least, to have been informed."

Mr Richards pointed out that Mr Iannello had been the victim of an earlier attack a year previous and produced what appeared to be a French passport with a photo of the dead man, portraying him as a M. Pastou, resident of Marseille.

"There is the safety of our citizens to consider," said Mr Richards. "And of course, the business of Saint Martin is tourism. A disaster like this can only hurt. I am very disappointed that the United States government, in connivance with Mr Iannello, allowed such a thing to happen - that this felon was provided with a false passport and encouraged to live here under false pretenses. My government and the government of France are both extremely unhappy with these developments, and an official demarche will be presented by end of day to the American ambassador."

Calls for comment to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan were not returned by press time, and the Justice Department issued a terse "No comment."

Unnamed sources in the U.S. Marshals Service, however, quoted elsewhere, complained bitterly of Justice Department mismanagement and lack of investigative zeal on the part of French and Saint Martin authorities. One man said the service is "in a state of shock" over the loss of so many U.S. marshals. "We blame Justice for this," said one source close to the team who guarded Mr Iannello. "We never would have allowed the man to stay in his own home if they hadn't pushed us."

He went on to say he had little faith in a satisfactory resolution to the many unanswered questions in the case, saying, "It's a French show now. Justice has egg on its face and doesn't want to press. And the French have already dropped the ball." He claimed that a purported offer of an FBI forensics team had been pointedly refused. "They have zero interest in finding out who did this. They hate this Al Capone stuff. It embarrasses them, and they just want it to go away."

A local French observer agrees. "There is little cooperation. People here are angry. There are a lot of hurt feelings."

The impact on the expected trial of Mr Calabrese is yet to be seen, but as Mr Iannello was said to be the key witness in a complicated RICO case involving many jurisdictions, it is an open question when, or even if, the proceedings will continue.

As Fred Mishkin, the veteran crime reporter for UPI, said, speaking on C-SPAN this morning, "Unless they have Jimmy Pazz's fingerprints on the gun that got Charlie, the show's over for the government. It's back to the drawing board."