The Big Scam (25 page)

On Vanko's instruction, Crowe and Straker checked around the area before Manny was allowed out of the car and then only with the sunglasses and hat, which he had pulled down as far as possible in protest. But when Sheila got out of her car, he pulled it off and gave her a self-conscious wave.

With Lansing close at hand, Vanko said, “Okay, Manny, is this it?”

“Yeah, this looks right.”

“Now that we're physically here, maybe your memory will be a little more detailed. Tell us exactly what you remember.”

“Well, like I said, it's got to be close to ten years ago. Like one o'clock in the morning when we got here, maybe later. Pitch black. My old man told me to wait right here while him and Nino took care of the body. They drove out of the lot and over that way.” Baldovino pointed in a generally southwestern direction.

“And how long were they gone?” Vanko asked.

“Forty-five minutes, an hour tops. I can't remember for sure.”

“When they got back, did they say anything that might narrow it down? You know, like the ground was hard, they had to drive across a stream, any landmarks? Anything like that?”

“I'll have to think about it, but nothing comes to me right at this minute. I'm sorry, Nick, but it isn't easy with everybody standing here expecting me to recall every little detail from a dark night ten years ago.”

“I'm sure it isn't. So let's try something else. Do you know the last time they buried a body here?”

“Nino only talked about it in general terms. He wasn't stupid.”

“So as far as you know, it was ten years ago.”

“That
I
know of, yeah, ten years.”

Checking the map, Vanko had everyone follow him down to High Street, where he took a right onto Woodland Valley Road. A bridge crossed over Esopus Creek; on the other side, he drove as far as the terrain would allow. Getting out, he called everyone together and handed out photocopied maps they had downloaded off the Internet that morning. The air was thick with the sour odor of decaying vegetation. He divided them into teams to search sectors designated on the map.

“What are we looking for?” Straker asked.

“Anywhere it looks like a hole has been dug and then filled in. They weren't hauling dirt away, so logically there would be mounds in the spots where the bodies were left, maybe overgrown by now. Aside from that, I don't know.”

The small groups, each with a handheld radio, took off along some of the foot trails that generally ran parallel to the creek. A solitary man fly-fishing in rubber waders was startled as the agents streamed past him. It was obvious they weren't there for the trout.

For the next two hours, the squad searched the area, doubling back and crisscrossing paths. After some of them straggled back to his position, Vanko radioed the rest to meet at the van. He asked Baldovino, “Did you remember anything else?”

“Not really.”

“And you don't have any idea how many bodies might be here?”

“Just what I already told you.”

“Manny?”

“What?”

“Could it be there was just one body?”

“No. Nino said it a couple of times, ‘All those poor bastards.' I'm not saying every mob guy that's ever been hit is up here, but I got the impression there's a bunch. I just don't know where.”

“Anybody have any ideas?”

Egan said, “When I was in Kansas City, we had a kidnapping that wound up being a search for the victim's body. They brought in this cadaver dog. It was pretty amazing.”

“But that was a fresh body, right?” Vanko asked.

“Yes, but there's been cases where they've found them after years.”

“Even if they're fully decayed?”

“I guess the soil becomes saturated with decomposition fluid. And they can detect that for years.”

“How deep do they have to be buried before the dogs can't smell them?”

Egan hadn't noticed, but Lansing had carefully moved just out of his peripheral vision and was watching his gestures closely to see if he had any “tells” when he lied. “They said there's been instances where they've detected bodies under eight feet of concrete. I don't know how they do it, but they're used all the time to find bodies under water, which is relatively easy because when a body is decomposing it gives off gases, which rise to the surface. It probably works the same way underground.”

“How big an area can one of them cover?” Vanko said.

“I'm no expert, but I think it depends on a lot of different things like how long they've been buried, how deep, the terrain, stuff like that. And you have to be careful. They can get over-stressed in a hurry, and it makes them hypersensitive. Once that happens, they're pretty much through for the day. A guess—I'd say a square mile, under perfect conditions, would take a dog at least a week.”

Vanko looked at his map again. “I'd say we've got at least five or six square miles here, maybe more, and with this undergrowth, we'd probably need a dozen dogs for a month. Can you give us anything else, Manny?”

“I've been trying to remember. It seemed like there was something else, but maybe I'm trying too hard.”

“There's too much area to search. Unless you can come up with something that's going to help us narrow it down, you're not going to be able to help yourself.”

Manny reminded himself not to look at Egan. “Hey, okay, I get it. I
am
trying.”

“I can't think of anything else to do up here. Let's head back. T. H., can you get Manny back?” Crowe nodded.

Egan said, “Nick, can I ride back with you? Maybe we could figure out something with the dogs.”

“Sure.”

Lansing got in the backseat of Vanko's car and said to Egan, “Why don't you ride up front. I'd like to stretch out my legs.”

After they had been driving for a while, Egan said, “As impressive as that dog was, it didn't find the kidnapping victim.” Lansing began to wonder if any of his story was true. “A Fish and Game warden's dog more or less stumbled on the body.”

“Well, I'm sure there aren't enough of those in the whole state of New York to help us,” Vanko said.

Lansing watched as Egan glanced at Vanko, trying to decide the right moment to deliver what he wanted to say next. Then, as if suddenly remembering the passenger in the backseat, he looked at Lansing, who averted his gaze out the window. Finally Egan said, “You know, when I was working on Wall Street, I did a workup on this outfit that the oil exploration companies use. They conduct seismic tests to find oil and gas deposits underground. With the advance in computers and mathematics in the last twenty years they have become very sophisticated. They send these sound waves into the earth and then take a reading when the signal echoes back to sensors. It gives these huge three-dimensional charts showing exactly what's underground. Think something like that could work on this?”

“I don't know. There's a big difference between millions of gallons of oil and a body.”

“I remember something about it being used to find utility lines for potential digging problems, so they must be able to scale it down. I could look into it.”

“How long will it take you to find out?” Lansing asked carefully.

“I could get on it as soon as we get back.”

Vanko turned toward Egan. “Pretty creative for a guy who says he doesn't care.”

“That's always been my problem, I let myself get too involved, and then I get carried away.”

The only sense Lansing could make out of Egan and Baldovino's ruse was that they were trying to get the FBI to search underground for something. What, he had no idea, but he was sure it wasn't bodies. Whatever it was, when they found it, he would be there.

THE AFTER HOURS WAS ONE OF THE HOTTEST CLUBS
in Bensonhurst, and just to make sure everyone knew it, the doorman had standing orders to keep a long line of customers outside, even if it reduced profits in the short term. Parisi had been told to bring Baldovino with him and come straight to the side door “to avoid the crowd.” These instructions worried him. Why didn't DeMiglia want him to be seen coming into the club? The predictable answer was that he was simply being cautious. As he pulled into the lot, Parisi hoped that was DeMiglia's only reason. Even though the air-conditioning was blasting, the back of his shirt was soaked. As they got out of the car, the hot, sticky night air closed in around him.

After a single knock, the door was opened and Parisi and Baldovino were led upstairs to a private room. DeMiglia sat on the couch with a young woman. He pulled her close and whispered in her ear. She pushed down her skirt and smiled at them as she left. DeMiglia pointed at the two chairs opposite the couch. “Come on, sit.” They waited for the underboss to announce the reason they had been summoned.

“So?”

Parisi casually lit a cigarette and said, “From what Manny said, it went well. Like Egan predicted, once they heard ‘Mafia' and ‘graveyard' in the same sentence their brains disappeared up their asses.”

“Did it go that good, Manny?”

“Yeah, they think there's bodies out there.” Baldovino laughed. “You should have seen them running around. At times they were actually bumping into each other, afraid someone else was going to find a body first. Egan was right, it's absolutely friggin' catnip.”

DeMiglia smiled only briefly. “Are they buying it, or are you two bullshitting me so you won't have to do that diamond score?” Parisi shifted uncomfortably. It was not a question he wanted Manny to try to answer. He started to say something, but DeMiglia held up a hand. “Well, Manny?”

“No, I'm telling you, Danny, they're buying it, completely.”

DeMiglia swiveled toward Parisi. “You talk to Egan?”

“Not yet.”

“Get him on the phone right now.”

“He isn't going to like that.”

“My job is getting people to do things they don't like. It's
supposed
to be your job, too. Make the call.”

Parisi crushed out his cigarette and dialed. “Garrett, it's Mike. How'd it go today?”

“I'd say it went well,” Egan said. “What did Manny think?”

“He said the same thing. What about the seismic stuff?”

“The supervisor's interested, in fact, he's put me in charge of seeing if it can be arranged.”

“And you don't think they suspect anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Hold on a second.” Parisi repeated what the agent had said.

DeMiglia said, “Give me the phone.”

Parisi handed it to DeMiglia.

“I know you don't want to talk to somebody you don't know, but just take it easy for a minute.”

“I told Parisi I don't need to be dealing with anybody else. One is too many, and now there are three of you.”

“Nobody likes a cautious person more than me. It's what's kept me out of jail. And you should take some comfort in that. Because if I ain't going to prison, you ain't going. Understand?”

“I guess.”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good. Now how sure are you that they're going to go for this with the underground stuff?”

“As I told Mike, they'd do anything to uncover a Mafia graveyard. They can taste it.”

“And they put you in charge of arranging it?”

“The technical stuff, yes.”

“Un-fucking-believable. Maybe you guys are overrated.”

“You don't know what an understatement that is.”

“How soon you think you can pull this off?”

“A matter of days. Don't forget, I don't know how long I've got left, so for me, the quicker the better.”

“I'm keeping a close eye on this. Just so you know.”

“Please don't waste your time threatening me. My life's a little too fucked up right now for me to care that much.”

DeMiglia handed the phone back to Parisi, who said, “Call me when you hear anything.” He hung up.

DeMiglia shook his head. “Fifty million dollars. I told you we used to hear about this when we were kids. When I got older, I just figured it was like a ghost story. That there was nothing to it. Do you know what finding a legend makes you?”

“No, what?”

“A legend.”

Parisi was pleased that DeMiglia had lost his objectivity so completely and smiled in agreement.

But, after a moment, Parisi's concurrence seemed to sober the underboss. Experience had taught him that no matter what was going on right now, Parisi was ultimately an enemy. “You know something that's bothering me? You have this reputation of being a very practical guy, with the numbers and all. I didn't think someone like you would go for this treasure stuff.”

“You're right, usually if I can't touch it, I doubt it exists. But everything checks out. And when you actually go up there and walk around, it feels very real, almost like you can hear it rumbling under your feet. I think you felt it, too.” Although DeMiglia didn't deny it, he gave no indication that he had accepted the explanation. But Parisi knew he could always rely on the underboss's hatred of the FBI. “When I'm having doubts, I think, Hey, what's this costing us? Not a thing. And better than that, it's costing the FBI a ton. And if we get lucky and find the box, they'll never know anything about it. And we can still make idiots of them in the papers.”

Parisi could see that DeMiglia was pleased with how “his” plan had evolved into a no-lose situation as he pictured himself walking into the next commission meeting to a round of applause.

 

Maria Vargas sat on a bench half a block from Penn Station. Next to her was a small, battered suitcase. As she felt the man near, she looked up so he could see her tears. He was older and white, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, the kind of individual that had proved to be her crew's best marks. She sobbed just loudly enough. He looked down at her flawless fourteen-year-old face.

“Are you all right, Miss?”

Miss.
He was either a very proper person—which invariably translated into a need to rescue the damsel in distress—or, even better, he was laden with white guilt.

“No, I guess I'm okay.” Her voice cracked on the last two syllables.

“I'm sorry, but you don't sound like it.”

She glanced at the two young Hispanics, leaning against a building across the street watching her work.

He handed her a handkerchief. “Come on, tell me what's wrong.”

She pulled a letter out of her jeans pocket and pointed at the return address. “Do you know where this is?”

“Rochester, New York? Yes. Is that where you're trying to get to?”

“I was supposed to take a bus. I had a ticket, but someone stole my purse on the train from Dallas.”

“Is there someone in Rochester you can call?”

“They don't have a phone, and I don't know anyone else here.”

“How much is a ticket?”

This was the tricky part. If she asked for too much, she might scare off the mark, too little and her boyfriend would beat her. “I think they said forty-eight dollars,” she said, adding with childish desperation, “I would pay you back.”

“Well, maybe I could lend you twenty.”

“Could you make it twenty-five? I haven't eaten since I left Texas.”

“I've only got four singles.” Her eyes started to well up again. “There's an ATM around the corner.” He picked up her bag. “Come on, we'll see what we can do.”

She glanced back and one of the young men nodded. “You'll give me your address so I can send it to you?”

“Let's get you something to eat before we worry about all that.”

As soon as they turned the corner, she saw a patrol car parked at the curb with two NYPD officers in it. Crowe grabbed her wrist. “What do you think you're doing?” she demanded.

“Sending you home.” He opened her suitcase. There were only a few clothes inside.

Just as the car was pulling away, the two young Hispanics came around the corner. When they saw Maria in the backseat, they looked at Crowe. Barely able to contain a smile, he said, “You two, hold it right there, I want to talk to you.” They broke into a dead run.

 

Garrett Egan walked into Vanko's office and sat down. “I found somebody who'll do the seismic imaging.”

Vanko set his pen down and slowly folded his hands. “Impressive.”

“Something wrong?”

“As much as I'd like to take credit for it, I'm just a little surprised at the change in your attitude.”

“My attitude hasn't really changed all that much. I still hate how the Bureau is treating me and my family, but my days are a hell of a lot shorter when I can keep my mind off what's ahead. And who knows, maybe if I do some good around here, it'll be taken into consideration later on.”

“Fair enough. I'll get everybody in here so you just have to explain it once.”

Vanko called the squad in. Lansing emerged from the vault reading a file. “Chuck, we've got some information on that seismic imaging if you want to sit in.”

“Sure.”

When everyone had crowded into the office, Egan said, “I got lucky. Downtown had a former agents directory, so I made calls to some ex-agents in the Houston area who got retirement jobs with oil companies. One is a guy named Dave Thornton. He's only been retired three years, so he's still enough of an investigator to appreciate what we're trying to do. He's an engineer and spent a big part of his career in the lab.” He looked at Vanko. “Do you want the good news first?”

“Always.”

“I told him we were trying to locate some fairly shallow graves. As far as he knows it's never been done, but he'd really like to give it a try. He was telling me a couple of years ago, some scientist used all kinds of land devices to recover a billion dollars of gold from a sunken ship eight thousand feet deep without even getting a toe wet. He thought this had similar possibilities.”

“What kind of time frame are we looking at?”

“It's very sophisticated equipment, but it's also highly mobile. Since this project, as he calls it, is government-related, he can make it a priority. Once we give him the okay, he says he can have it here within two days.”

“What did he say about targets that are less than six feet deep?” Straker asked.

“He said the Russians have done extensive shallow search experiments, and by changing the frequency of the wave emitted, they could find inconsistencies at lesser depths. I think the chance to break new ground is what's making him so gung-ho.”

“So his guess is that it's possible,” Vanko said.

“Very possible.”

In the vault, Lansing had heard Vanko and Egan's preliminary conversation clearly enough to detect the suspicion in Vanko's voice. The last thing he needed right now was someone else discovering Egan's duplicity. “I'm impressed,” he offered, hoping that his optimism might sweep Vanko and the others along, but the only response was a brief, icy quiet.

Vanko said to Egan, “Okay, what's the bad news?”

“It costs seventy-eight thousand a day.”

“Did you tell him the size of our area?”

“Yes. He said he couldn't be sure—a lot of it depends on terrain and other variables—but he figured two to three days.”

“Didn't take long to get up to a quarter of a million, did it?” Vanko said.

“Some smaller good news—I did find a dog. A state Fish and Game officer who has one said she'd be glad to give us a hand. So that much is free.”

“Anyone see any problems?”

Straker turned to Lansing. “Hey, Chuck, isn't a quarter of a million about what they pay two inspectors a year?”

Lansing smiled uncomfortably. “About that.”

“Then I vote no, Nick. Why waste money on finding a bunch of dead goombas when we could have two more inspectors to get this office straightened out.”

Several “yeah's” chimed in.

“Thank you, Jack. As always, you've helped on so many levels,” Vanko said. “Okay, everybody out of here while I try to get authorization. Garrett, stick around in case I need some technical information.”

Lansing drifted back into the vault and removed the outlet cover. He listened in amazement as it took Vanko less than fifteen minutes to convince the SAC to risk that much money. Because the SAC didn't know the Mafia burial ground didn't exist, he was throwing away a quarter of a million dollars. Lansing could stop that right now, but if they ended up arresting Egan and any high-ranking organized crime figures, the money would be considered well spent. Besides, whatever the Galante family was looking for might turn out to be invaluable to law enforcement in the bargain. Back at FBI headquarters, Charles Lansing would be seen as responsible for the difficult organized crime arrests and, more important, for preventing yet another disastrous public relations nightmare by interdicting Egan's plans to help the Cosa Nostra. Anyone with either of those achievements in his personnel file might go to the head of the SAC promotion list, but someone with both wouldn't even need a list.