Reckless Endangerment (33 page)

He got the meeting under way, paying due attention to bureaucratic courtesy, which meant that the bosses had to give their completely hollow and noncommittal opinions before the working cop who knew something got to speak. The burden of this guff was that if there really was an Arab terror cell in operation it would be a bad thing, but that the Department (and My part of it, of course) was fully capable of dealing with it, under the wise orders of the brass.

Then it was Raney’s turn. He was wearing a dark gray suit, a gleaming white oxford shirt, a blue tie with tiny pale Nixonian dots, and his black wing tips were mirrors. He had never been on the fourteenth floor before, had never, since leaving the Police Academy, been in a police building that did not have pea-soup green walls, brown linoleum on the floors, and a pungent aroma of tobacco, Lysol, and acidic coffee. He thought he could get used to this kind of class pretty soon.

He was not in the least nervous as he began his presentation. His closest experience to what he was now doing was his service as an altar boy. There was God down there at the end of the table, and all you had to do was go through a set of well-rehearsed motions and he would be happy and you could go off back to regular life.

Raney was a decent enough presenter (he had learned much from Karp’s style in covering similar material the other night), bold enough to eschew the heavy circumlocutions of police jargon, and he told his story smoothly and succinctly. The Shilkes killing; the idea of a violent conspiracy wider than four boys; the discovery of the floater Ali and his tattoo; the business of the Daoud sister and the knife and the stabbing of Train Wilson on the Deuce; the raid on the East Village Women’s Shelter and the kidnap of the sister; the discovery there of 9mm shell casings with Czech military markings; the interrogation of Hassan Daoud and his son, Walid (they both had alibis); the evidence for Arab participants in the raid.

“
Who
was that who said they were Arabs?” Battle interrupted.

“Lucy Karp, sir, age ten,” said Raney. “She was sharing a room with the kidnapped girl and hid in the closet. She overheard them talking.”

Battle looked at Karp. “No relation, I presume,” said Battle.

“My daughter,” answered Karp.

A soft murmur in the room. “Excuse me, your
daughter
was in a battered-women’s shelter?” asked Battle.

“Yes, my wife does volunteer work for them, and my daughter occasionally befriends some of the younger residents, as apparently happened in this case. Fatyma Daoud was teaching her Arabic.” Incredulous stares. “My daughter is something of a language prodigy, Chief,” Karp added.

“I see,” said Battle. “So, is that it? A stabbing, a floater with a tattoo, another stabbing, a kidnap from a shelter by ‘Arabs’ of some kind on the evidence of a ten-year-old?”

“Not quite,” Karp said, and related the story of Ibn-Salemeh and Khalid, as he had heard it in John Haddad’s office.

Battle was skilled at keeping his face unrevealing of his thoughts, and so no one saw how truly irritated he was at these revelations. A city councilman had been involved in this stupidity, which meant that even greater circumspection was required. John Haddad could not be hauled into a precinct and sweated for more information about the shadowy Mr. Rahmali; nor was it wise to launch at this time a major roust of the Arab community, not until the P.C. had worked the mayor and seen how much clout Haddad exercised on issues critical to the Department. His suspicion was confirmed that this was some kind of political thing that the Department would do well to keep at arm’s length.

“Very interesting, Mr. Karp,” Battle said icily. “It’s always fascinating when the New York D.A. extends his investigatory reach to the outer boroughs.” He turned to the BSSI chief, whose name was Richard Bailey. Bailey was an elderly desk-jockey inspector with a lot of pals among the brass, who was filling his present post as a sinecure before retirement. Battle said, “Dick, you have anything on this?”

Bailey cleared his throat. “Not a thing, Chief. In fact, I spoke to Don Herring at the Bureau this morning when I got the heads-up for this meeting. He said, and I quote, ‘it is extremely unlikely that there has been significant penetration of the continental United States by Middle Eastern terror organizations.’ So …” He shrugged elaborately.

Battle grunted and looked down the table, straining for a way out of this garbage that would cover the Department and let him get back to serious work. His gaze lit upon the one face that stood out in the ring of pale, attentive, respectful ovals around the table. This face was not particularly respectful or attentive. It was bored. It had an expression on it that might even be called insubordinate. And it was deep brown. Chief Battle well understood that in this year of 1981, the slightest taint of racism was an absolute career killer, and so he never, even among his closest friends, allowed a word disrespectful of minorities to pass his lips. On the other hand, if one had to stick someone with a tar baby, so to speak…

“Lieutenant Fulton,” he boomed, “perhaps we could have your thoughts on this, and why don’t you begin by explaining your connection with the case?”

Fulton explained that he was there at the request of the district attorney’s office, and that he had reviewed the case at the request of same, he being a legitimate member of the D.A. squad, and there being some sense that there might be a suspect involvement of a public official, Mr. Haddad. Which, he was happy to say, there was not. But having reviewed the case material presented by Detective Raney in some detail, he had to respectfully disagree with Inspector Bailey. It was his professional opinion that there was sufficient evidence to suggest the existence of an alien conspiracy of unknown capability and extent, certainly enough to warrant a full-scale investigation.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Battle, smiling faintly. That was what he had expected and desired the man to say. “Since you feel that way, why don’t we put you in charge of the investigation? Say, you and Sergeant Raney for starters, and other resources as required. You’ll report through BSSI and Inspector Bailey here, if that’s all right with you, Dick? Good. And please—watch the overtime, people. We’re getting killed on it this year.” He got to his feet. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming,” he said crisply, as if attendance had been voluntary, and then strode out, followed by two junior suits who had been sitting in chairs along the wall.

“Well, wasn’t that a rat fuck?” said Raney, who was sitting in Karp’s office with Fulton. All three men had their jackets off and were dabbing themselves with wads of paper towels. It had started to rain heavily while they were walking the few blocks from Police Plaza to Centre Street, and they had gotten soaked, which did not improve their moods.

“It’s more or less what I expected,” said Karp. “The cops don’t like D.A.’s telling them they’re asleep at the switch.”

“Speaking of sleep,” said Raney, “am I crazy or did Inspector Bailey actually doze off while Fulton was talking? Are we really going to report to that crock?”

Fulton said, “Absolutely. We will generate paper and send him every scrap of it, at least a ream every day, tabbed and indexed. He’s not going to read any of it, but it’ll cover our butts with the chief. Meanwhile, we’ll do what we need to do.”

“And he’s going to give us what we need?”

“No, and we’re not going to ask him either, unless we want to dick around until Christmas. Me, you, White, maybe we can steal some people from the D.A. Squad, I can call in some favors uptown if we need to, but that’s going to be it. We’ll get a piece of paper with Battle’s name on it we can wave around the precincts so they don’t laugh in our faces if we need a canvass or something.”

“That’s not enough,” said Raney.

“No, but it’s what we got. So, where do we start?”

“What did your FBI guy say?” Karp asked Fulton.

“What Bailey’s guy said, more or less. The Bureau is real careful nowadays about setting up intelligence operations against domestic political groups, or so they tell me. What,
us
spy on a peaceful businessman of Arab heritage?
Us?
Also, it’s well known in the Bureau that local cops, when you can drag them away from beating up minorities and collecting graft, can barely tie their own shoes. The idea that
we
picked up a terrorist cell that
they
missed …”

“Got it,” said Karp. “So, no help there. Suggestions?”

“Get on the kidnap,” said Fulton. “It’s the most recent crime. Go over the scene, check the forensics, do a canvass. There were a bunch of guys involved, somebody must have seen something, recognized a car, seen a license plate.”

“We should have a talk with this Khalid character, what’s-his-name, Chouza,” said Raney.

Fulton frowned and shook his head. “Yeah, you said that the other night. But like I said then, what if he spooks? These guys are probably pretty good at that.”

“If he spooks, at least we know he’s dirty,” said Raney.

“Uh-huh, and then him and an unknown number of associates are loose in New York with—what was it, Butch?—a two-hundred-fifty-kilogram bomb. We don’t know shit about what they’re doing yet. It’s way too early to brace Khalid.”

“We could follow him, low-profile.”

“Yeah, we could if we had the troops,” said Fulton. “It takes eight people to provide full-time one-man surveillance, and if you want to set up a moving surveillance on anybody who’s likely to be looking for it, you need at least three cars. Also, if we’re going to concentrate on anyone, I’d rather concentrate on the Daouds.”

“Oh, fuck the Daouds!” snapped Raney, who was getting a little tired of being told his business by this guy, whatever his rep. “The Daouds are patsies. The kid is a dim bulb; the father is a straight-up bakery guy who barely speaks English.”

Fulton’s genial smile did not break. “Right, Jim, but if they’re such nobodies, why did a slick bunch of guys with automatic weapons go through a lot of trouble to lift the daughter?”

Raney opened his mouth to answer this and then realized he didn’t know the answer, that the answer to that particular question would be one of the prime goals of any investigation. He subsided, cursing under his breath.

“Yeah, right,” said Fulton sympathetically, “me too.” He looked over at Karp, who was gazing dreamily out the window and slowly drying his head. “Say, Ace—you got any ideas here, now that you got us into this shit?”

Karp said, to their surprise, “I guess you noticed who was missing from the meeting today.”

A moment’s thought and Raney answered, “Roland?”

“Yeah, Roland’s having a bad day all around,” said Karp, and he told them the story, widely circulating now through Centre Street, of the weekend’s developments in re: Morilla. “I’m concerned about the supposed gunman here,” Karp concluded. “The late Ahmed. I hate it that he’s an Arab.”

This dangled for a moment, and then Raney bit with a puzzled grimace. “So he’s an Arab—you’re not saying there’s a connection?”

“Not yet,” said Karp, “but you might want to touch base with Alfasano in the Six, see if he’s got any more story on the deceased. There could be a link.”

Raney nodded agreeably, not desiring another argument. “Yeah, okay. So they’re going to spring the Mexican brothers?”

“Probably walking free this minute,” said Karp.

Two hours after his release from Rikers, Jodón Obregon was reclining on a comfortable bed in a West Side hotel. Next to the bed stood the large suitcase that had been delivered that morning to the offices of Manny Huerta. Huerta had turned it over to him upon the brothers’ release, pointedly not inquiring what was in it. The delivery of such suitcases was not an uncommon event in Huerta’s practice. The lawyer had been paid, in cash.

Jodón had enjoyed a long, hot shower, several cool drinks, and a cigar, and was awaiting the arrival of a blond whore he had ordered from the bell captain. There was one item of business remaining before he could fully relax, however. He picked up the bedside phone and dialed a familiar number.

El Chivato answered on the fourth ring. Jodón was effusive in his praise—all had worked out as they wished. They were free, and the money was promised. Lucky was terrified and willing to do anything to stave off the attentions of El Chivato.

Who listened to this without comment, saying only, “I have to get back to Nogales.”

“Yes, you can go tonight. But there’s one last thing. You have to pick up the money.”

“From Lucky?”

“Yes. I arranged for you to meet him in Brooklyn, five-thirty this evening. Take down this address.” He read out the address of a garage on Fulton Street that Lucky had given him. “Okay, this is a car-repair shop, but it’ll be closed for the day. There’s an office you can see from the street. He’ll be there, sitting in the office. With the money in a suitcase. You go in, pick it up, and get out. You got that?” Jodón asked.

“Yes. How much is it?”

“Two point two million. That’s something, huh?”

“Yes.”

Jodón waited for the kid to say something else, but there was nothing but the hiss of the line. He said, “So, again, a good job. I’ll recommend you to all my friends. Maybe I’ll see you back in Mexico …” Another long pause. For some reason the kid didn’t want to hang up. Then he heard the click of the broken connection, and with a feeling of relief and a vague unease, as if something had been left undone, he hung up the phone.

It was not until over an hour later, with the blond whore on top of him, bouncing vigorously away, that he understood, and the understanding drove an icy spike of fear through his vitals and drew the stiffness from his organ, causing the girl to break her rhythm and look down at him with a confused expression.

He heaved the girl off him, wiped himself with a corner of the sheet, and grabbed instinctively for the phone. But who to call, what to do? José was no help, the lawyer was no help—a plane ticket out? Yes, but to where? Nothing could be planned until he had assurance that the little
maricón
was truly dead. He put the phone down and tried to think how he had come to do such a stupid thing. The excitement of being released perhaps, the strong drinks after long abstinence. This was what had caused him to tell the most dangerous man in Mexico to pick up over two million (imaginary) dollars without also telling him where to deliver it.